School Council - thought to be an initiative, but when implemented it becomes a "bottleneck"

School Council - thought to be an initiative, but when implemented it becomes a "bottleneck"

According to data from the Department of Personnel Organization, Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), compiled from reports of ministries, branches and localities, in the 2024-2025 school year, 173/174 public higher education institutions (excluding higher education institutions under the Army and Public Security) have established school councils according to the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Higher Education and Decree No. 99/2020/ND-CP. However, in recent times, the reality shows that the School Council model in many public educational institutions has not yet played its actual role.

Pedagogy students, Hanoi National University of Education in the lecture hall. Photo: Cong Hung.

The operation of the School Council of public educational institutions is still a formality, overlapping with the leadership role of the Party Committee and the Board of Directors, causing waste of resources and time. Resolution 71 of the Politburo on breakthroughs in education and training development has important content related to this issue.

Specifically, Resolution 71 requires strengthening the comprehensive and direct leadership role of the Party organization, especially the role of the head of the Party Committee in educational institutions. Accordingly, there will be no School Councils in public educational institutions (except for public schools with international agreements); the Party Committee Secretary will also be the head of the educational institution.

Sharing with CAND Newspaper reporters on this issue, Associate Professor Dr. Tran Thanh Nam, Vice Principal of the University of Education, Hanoi National University, said that this is a very remarkable change and has a profound impact on the public university governance model. The lack of a school council in public educational institutions shows the policy of readjusting the governance mechanism towards concentration and unification of leadership.

Instead of having two parallel institutions (Party Secretary and University Council/Principal), the Party Secretary will now also be the head of the university. The goal of this change is to streamline the apparatus and improve management efficiency. Without the University Council, decision-making power will be concentrated in a single point of contact. This is expected to help speed up the decision-making process in universities.

The leader (Secretary and Principal, Director) will be fully responsible to the superiors and the collective for all aspects of the school's activities. This will avoid the situation where the School Council and the Board of Directors may not have a high consensus, leading to stagnation in some decisions. In other words, unified leadership will create conditions for the school to act decisively and respond promptly to opportunities and challenges in the context of autonomy.

Also according to Associate Professor Dr. Tran Thanh Nam, within the university, if the leader has vision and good management capacity, "one person in command" will create high unity throughout the school, avoiding the mentality of waiting and relying on each other between institutions.

However, the prerequisite is to select truly worthy officials for this leading position, who have both solid political qualities, advanced university management capacity, and a good understanding of educational philosophy. And to operate the new model smoothly, it is necessary to soon complete the legal framework and corresponding monitoring mechanism. If done well, this will create momentum for university autonomy to be implemented more synchronously and substantially in the coming time.

Associate Professor Dr. Bui Anh Thuy, Head of the Faculty of Law, Van Lang University, also expressed his opinion: To successfully implement Resolution 71, the State needs to promptly review and synchronously amend related laws such as the Law on Education, the Law on Higher Education, and the Law on Vocational Education, in order to create a solid legal corridor for the new governance model.

Along with that, it is necessary to build a clear and effective monitoring and accountability mechanism to ensure the responsibility of the head and transparency in operation. This is to ensure that despite changes in the organizational model, substantive autonomy must still be guaranteed because it is a key factor for the development of higher education.

At the 2025 Higher Education Conference organized by the Ministry of Education and Training on September 18, Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son said: At the national conference to disseminate and implement the 4 resolutions of the Politburo on the morning of September 16, Party and State leaders thoroughly analyzed the policy of not organizing University Councils in public higher education institutions. Party and State leaders especially emphasized the need to innovate and strengthen the comprehensive and direct leadership role of Party organizations, especially the role of heads of Party committees in educational institutions.

In the near future, the Ministry of Education and Training will develop guidelines for implementing the policy of not organizing School Councils in public educational institutions, including regulations on conditions and standards for secretaries and heads. Units will base on the standards and conditions to select people with suitable capacity to take on both tasks. This is expected to create more convenience and suitability for schools in the coming period.

Also related to this issue, the Ministry of Education and Training has sent an official dispatch to affiliated higher education and vocational training institutions, requesting the School Council, Chairman of the School Council, and Vice Chairman of the School Council to continue operating until there are new instructions; at the same time, it will temporarily suspend the planning work for the Chairman of the School Council, Vice Chairman of the School Council; temporarily suspend the planning work and consider new appointments for the positions of Director, Deputy Director, Principal, and Vice Principal until there are new instructions.

Source: https://cand.com.vn/giao-duc/hoi-dong-truong-tuong-sang-kien-khi-thuc-hien-lai-thanh-nut-that-i781920/