Should there be a two-level university model?

Students of Hanoi National University at the graduation ceremony. Photo: Hoa Ban

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In 2022, at the workshop on the organizational and operational models of universities in Vietnam organized by Hanoi National University in coordination with the Standing Committee of the National Assembly's Committee on Culture and Education, Prof. Dr. Lam Quang Thiep, former Director of the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Training, wrote an article on multidisciplinary university design, implementation, problems and solutions.

He said that in the early 1990s, when the Government advocated building a number of strong universities, Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet asked the Ministry of Education and Training to design these universities and the Ministry proposed building two national universities, Hanoi National University and Ho Chi Minh City National University, and three regional universities, Thai Nguyen University, Hue University, and Da Nang University, following a multidisciplinary model.

At that time, most of Vietnam's universities were very small in scale, and the construction of multidisciplinary universities was mostly carried out by merging a number of single-disciplinary universities. However, this model revealed many difficulties and shortcomings in management.

Therefore, the Government must maintain the positions of member universities and not change the previous management positions. Therefore, the regulations for organizing national universities and regional universities are built according to the two-level university model.

However, Professor Lam Quang Thiep assessed that this model has neutralized the advantages of the multidisciplinary university model, giving rise to many problems in university governance and management. The 2018 Law on Higher Education has removed the concept of two-level universities from the definition section.

Professor Lam Quang Thiep believes that the existence of an intermediate management level of a “university” is a mechanism that causes many problems and conflicts. Therefore, he suggests that it is better for national and regional universities to be built according to a real university model, and not to use a two-tier university model.

Sharing with Tien Phong reporter, Prof. Dr. Vu Hoang Linh, Chairman of the University Council, University of Science (Vietnam National University, Hanoi) pointed out the inadequacies in the names of the international relations of member universities in the national university.

“We introduce ourselves as a university, and above us we have another university. Countries around the world do not understand how Vietnamese university education is, but they have a university within a university,” said Professor Vu Hoang Linh.

He shared that the Government is about to issue a decree on national universities, raising hopes of clearly defining the role, position and specific mechanisms of this university model. Regarding other contents on the activities of universities under the national universities, Mr. Linh affirmed that so far no major problems have arisen. However, it is also necessary to review and evaluate to adjust and develop more strongly.

Restructuring

The leader of a university under the national university shared that the nature of a national university or regional university is just a “cover”, never “good wood”. According to this person, the important thing is that the university has quality training, we should not focus too much on the outer cover.

“Of course, the shirt is also important, but only paying attention to it (like the past few decades) is a waste of time. Let’s see, just comparing the facilities, is there any university in Vietnam worthy of being compared to a top 10, or even top 20 university in Asia.

The two national universities have been established for 30 years, but up to now, they still have no facilities,” said this leader. Therefore, he said, it is difficult to confirm whether the model is effective or not if put into practice.

Dr. Le Van Ut (Van Lang University) said that Vietnam should not keep universities within universities as they are now, but needs to shift and restructure to suit world trends.

According to Dr. Ut, the two-tier university model is losing autonomy and making it difficult to make a breakthrough. He believes that there are only universities and below them are schools/faculties such as Hanoi University of Science and Technology, National Economics University, and Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics. When restructuring two-tier universities, any university that wants autonomy can "secede", and the remaining universities will become affiliated schools/faculties.

The leader of a university under the National University proposed that the Government and the Ministry of Education and Training need to determine whether Vietnam needs the current two-level university model in the next 20-30 years. If not, it should switch to another model that is more suitable to reality.

At the discussion on the draft revised Law on Higher Education recently organized by the Ministry of Education and Training, Mr. Bui Xuan Hai, Principal of Hai Phong University, said that the two-level university system puts member universities in a situation of one-door, two-lock, being under the management of both the university level and the state agency. According to Mr. Hai, member universities under the National University and regional universities need to be granted autonomy similar to independent universities, creating conditions for comprehensive development.

In the draft report assessing the impact of the Law on Higher Education, the Ministry of Education and Training acknowledged that the two-level university model creates many challenges, complexities and potential risks in organization and management, especially when implementing the autonomy mechanism. Deputy Minister Hoang Minh Son said that the two-level university model has been discussed a lot.

However, he said that national universities and regional universities are units managed by the State according to their missions and have their own positions. Therefore, we should discuss internal governance, not the issue of abolishing national universities or regional universities, and consider how this model needs to be improved.

NGHIEM HUE

Source: https://tienphong.vn/co-nen-ton-tai-mo-hinh-dai-hoc-2-cap-post1742913.tpo