Need to concretize the idea of autonomy in higher education

Discussing at Group 3 (including the National Assembly Delegation of Thanh Hoa and Tay Ninh provinces) on the afternoon of October 22 about draft laws in the field of education and training, National Assembly Delegate (Thanh Hoa), Minister of Ethnic Minorities and Religions Dao Ngoc Dung suggested that the law must specify the idea of autonomy, as currently autonomy is "equating autonomy in organization, apparatus, personnel with financial autonomy" and is heavily focused on financial autonomy.

Báo Đại biểu Nhân dân•22/10/2025

Being "heavy" on financial autonomy

According to National Assembly member Dao Ngoc Dung, recently, the Politburo and General Secretary To Lam have made very strong decisions in the field of education. These include policies on tuition fee exemption and reduction, moving towards universal high school education, lunch fee exemption and reduction, and especially the policy of investing in 248 schools in border and disadvantaged communes. These are practical and humane policies in education that people have long awaited.

National Assembly Delegate Dao Ngoc Dung ( Thanh Hoa ) speaks

Delegate Dao Ngoc Dung commented that the three draft laws on education and training submitted to the National Assembly for revision this time have basically updated the ideas and contents of Resolution 71 and the policies of the Central Committee. The draft laws not only legislate but also concretize the viewpoints, ideas and breakthrough solutions until 2035 with the larger goal of "training, fostering and developing high-quality and highly integrated human resources".

Delegates highly appreciated the three draft laws and expected that the amendments would create a breakthrough in education and training in accordance with the spirit of Resolution No. 71.

Commenting on the Draft Law on Higher Education (amended), delegate Dao Ngoc Dung commented: “We are updating the idea of autonomy, but autonomy here is being equated between the autonomy of schools, while the autonomy between the three levels of education is different. Autonomy in secondary schools is different, autonomy in vocational training is different, and autonomy in universities is different.”

According to the Minister, autonomy is the most important breakthrough for universities. Any school that wants to develop quickly must improve quality and be completely autonomous in academics, degree examination, training programs, enrollment, and tuition collection.

The Minister cited examples from countries around the world where universities focus on research and application of science and technology, while domestic universities are weak in this field. In the world, there are 3 groups of schools including: high-level schools with new initiatives and new creations; applied schools; and practical schools. In Vietnam, it is "heavy on knowledge" but not much practice.

Accordingly, the Minister suggested that the law should specify the idea of autonomy, as currently autonomy is "equating autonomy in organization, apparatus, personnel with financial autonomy" and is heavily focused on financial autonomy. Therefore, the autonomy section in the draft law needs to be written more carefully and allow universities to be autonomous in 3 issues: finance, personnel decisions, and boldly assign local authorities to manage the state at all levels of education.

Regarding the school council, the Minister supports the draft law to abolish the school council in public higher education institutions to ensure unified management, overcome shortcomings in the relationship between the public school council and the board of directors in recent times; at the same time, strengthen the leadership role of the Party in public higher education institutions.

National Assembly member Dao Ngoc Dung said that in public schools, there is an organizational structure where the Party leads, the government manages and organizations participate, which leads to overlap when the school board decides on an issue. Therefore, the entire school board should be abolished in public universities and colleges. For private schools, the school board should still be kept because it has capital from organizations and individuals, so without the school board, it cannot be operated.

Allow vocational colleges to train in multiple fields, disciplines, and levels.

Commenting on the Law on Vocational Education (amended), National Assembly member Dao Ngoc Dung pointed out that currently there are 3 levels: college, intermediate and primary. The draft law has eliminated the primary level. In practice, our country has 70% of the workforce trained but in reality only 29% of the workforce has certificates and degrees from primary to university. So, what will happen if the primary level is eliminated, while the majority of workers working in industrial zones have primary training?

"If we eliminate primary education, we are inadvertently eliminating the role of businesses, while the Labor Code stipulates that businesses must be responsible for training and developing workers," emphasized delegate Dao Ngoc Dung.

Currently, there are some industries that are not allowed to train in multiple disciplines, fields, and levels, typically the culture and arts industry. Pointing out this reality, the Minister suggested that the draft law should stipulate that vocational colleges should be allowed to train in multiple disciplines, fields, and levels, that is, to train at college, intermediate, elementary, and even inter-level. Delegates shared the reality,

The draft law outlines the “vocational secondary school” model, allowing post-secondary students to study both general education and vocational training. According to the Minister, over 600 secondary schools in our country currently perform two tasks: vocational training and general education. The regulation that “vocational secondary school” is equivalent to high school is inappropriate because the nature of vocational schools is technical training, not academic training.

Referring to the current issue of vocational training and education, National Assembly member Dao Ngoc Dung said that the learners are mainly children from poor families and those who do not need or cannot continue their studies. Their goal is to have a job immediately, graduate early to support themselves and their families. On average, each year there are about 500,000 children who do not continue their studies, so this is the group that needs to be targeted for vocational training.

“The State must play a leading role in taking care of vocational training for children. Each enterprise must be a vocational school and within the vocational school there must be enterprises,” Minister Dao Ngoc Dung emphasized.

The Minister cited the dual training model with experience in Germany, where businesses connect with schools, and schools connect with businesses. Students must sign a contract with a business from the beginning and during the course of study, students practice at businesses with a salary to ensure solid skills upon graduation.

Regarding the Draft Law on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Education, National Assembly Deputy Dao Ngoc Dung said that all secondary schools and vocational schools should gradually abandon their management to be able to be autonomous and should be handed over to local authorities and the Ministry of Education and Training for state management.

Regarding specialized training, the draft law stipulates that the decision to establish, dissolve and manage specialized schools is left to the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee. This is a correct provision, but for schools under the three ministries: the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Ethnic Minorities and Religions, and the Ministry of National Defense, the decision should be left to the Ministers of these ministries to suit the reality.

Source: https://daibieunhandan.vn/can-cu-the-hoa-tu-tuong-ve-tu-chu-trong-giao-duc-dai-hoc-10392466.html