National Assembly delegates propose to abolish regional universities

(Dan Tri) - According to National Assembly member Nguyen Tuan Anh, the regulations on regional universities are no longer appropriate. "The Ministry of Education manages hundreds of schools, there is no reason to need 3 regional universities just to manage a few member schools," he said.

This viewpoint was expressed by National Assembly delegate Nguyen Tuan Anh, Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Can Tho City, when giving comments on the draft Law on Higher Education (amended) at the group meeting on the afternoon of October 22.

Regarding the university organization model, Mr. Tuan Anh said that the Vietnamese university system initially had universities, then added academies and recently the Law on Higher Education stipulated additional types of universities, national universities and regional universities.

Regarding regional universities (two-level university model), the delegate said that the whole country currently has only three establishments, including: Thai Nguyen University (in charge of the Northern midland and mountainous region), Hue University (in charge of the Central region), and Da Nang University (in charge of the Central Highlands - Central region).

National Assembly Delegate Nguyen Tuan Anh, Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Can Tho City, proposed to abolish regional universities to streamline the apparatus (Photo: Lam Hien).

After about 25 years of implementation, Mr. Tuan Anh commented that the biggest problem with this two-tier model is the organizational structure. Specifically, in the university there is the Board of Directors, training service units and member schools. The member universities have similar structures.

For example, a university has 10 member schools, with a Training Department, then the 10 member schools also have 10 training departments. "People admit that the apparatus is too cumbersome, costs a lot of money, and even has to increase the number of students to rationalize costs," the Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Can Tho stated the reality.

From that inadequacy, he believes that the draft Law on Higher Education (amended) should not specifically mention "regional universities" (in Articles 11 and 12).

According to the analysis of delegates, after streamlining the apparatus and merging provinces and cities, the "regional" nature of current regional universities is no longer suitable, especially when the whole country is implementing digital transformation in national governance.

“Regarding management, the Ministry of Education and Training manages hundreds of schools. So there is no reason to need three regional universities just to manage a few member universities within,” said Mr. Tuan Anh.

According to him, the recent Resolution 71 of the Politburo also requires the elimination of intermediate levels, streamlining the apparatus and especially rearranging universities. The latest spirit is to rearrange schools, including those of central agencies located in the area or schools managed by local authorities, to facilitate enrollment and the sharing of resources and facilities.

"Currently, the whole country only has 3 regional universities. If the regulations on regional universities are maintained, the rearrangement of schools in these localities will certainly be difficult," Mr. Tuan Anh said about the proposed 2 solutions.

One is to clearly stipulate in the law that the education and training system cannot have two-level universities, but must be unified into one-level universities. Vietnam should only have universities (training in-depth specialized fields, certain majors) and universities (training in many fields). This regulation helps to streamline the apparatus and make management easier.

If option 1 is not approved, delegate Tuan Anh proposed option 2, requesting the Ministry of Education and Training to quickly re-evaluate, and determine whether the current regional universities, if they have no students and do not provide any training, are intermediate level or not? "If they are intermediate level, we need to resolutely eliminate them," said Mr. Tuan Anh, believing that this would solve this problem at its root.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/thoi-su/dai-bieu-quoc-hoi-de-xuat-bo-dai-hoc-vung-20251022222319234.htm