University restructuring is an imperative, a strategy for breakthroughs

(Dan Tri) - Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son affirmed that this major reorganization of educational institutions is an order, and at the same time, a chance for higher education to make a breakthrough.

Resolution 71 of the Politburo on breakthroughs in education and training development sets out the task of modernizing and upgrading higher education, creating breakthroughs in developing highly qualified human resources and talents, and leading research and innovation.

In which, arranging, restructuring and merging higher education institutions is one of the key solutions.

At the 2025 Higher Education Conference, Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son affirmed that this major restructuring of educational institutions is an order.

This is the opportunity, the time, the moment for higher education to make a breakthrough. "If we do not seize the opportunity, seize the power, it means we are at fault," the head of the education sector emphasized.

Before the revolution in university arrangement and merger, Dan Tri Newspaper organized a series of articles with the theme: "The great arrangement of universities: A historical turning point for breakthrough development".

The series of articles is a panoramic picture of the orientation of arranging, restructuring and merging universities in Vietnam, in which leading experts will participate in debating and clarifying breakthrough development opportunities for higher education and challenges that need to be jointly resolved so that the higher education revolution can reach its destination in accordance with the spirit of Resolution 71.

"Opportunity, luck, time for higher education to break through"

In the process of national development, our Party and State always consider education and training (GD&DT) along with science and technology as the top national policy. Many major policies and guidelines have been issued, promoting innovation and strong development of GD&DT, achieving important results. Vietnam is among the 21 countries that will soon achieve the United Nations' sustainable development goals by 2030 on quality education.

However, education and training still face many difficulties and limitations, and have not really become the key driving force for the country's breakthrough development. The university and vocational education systems are fragmented and outdated, failing to meet the requirements for training high-quality human resources and scientific research, especially in some key sectors and fields.

Resolution 71 of the Politburo on breakthroughs in education and training development identifies higher education as the core for developing highly qualified human resources and talents, promoting the development of science, technology and innovation.

One of the outstanding goals to modernize and improve higher education, create breakthroughs in developing highly qualified and talented human resources, and lead research and innovation is to urgently build a strategic framework for higher education development.

The Politburo directed the implementation of the arrangement and restructuring of higher education institutions; the merger and dissolution of substandard higher education institutions; the elimination of intermediate levels, ensuring streamlined, unified and effective administration; the study of merging research institutes with higher education institutions; the strengthening of state management of higher education institutions; and the study of transferring a number of universities to local management to improve management efficiency and better meet local human resource training requirements.

At the same time, invest in modernizing technical infrastructure, expanding development space for universities to operate effectively. Focus on investing in upgrading facilities, laboratories, building excellent training and research centers at key universities and teacher training facilities.

Invest heavily and have special, outstanding mechanisms to develop 3 to 5 elite universities following the model of international-class research universities, training national talents.

Encourage the planning and construction of high-tech urban areas - universities; strongly promote the development of higher education institutions according to the model of innovative universities, new-generation technological universities, becoming the locomotive and core in the innovation ecosystem of the regions; support the effective implementation of State - School - Enterprise cooperation. Have an effective support mechanism for lecturers and learners to implement start-up projects, innovation, establish start-up companies, start-up companies.

According to Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son, the education sector is facing many problems and changes, including preparing for a major restructuring of educational institutions.

However, this is the opportunity, the time, the moment for higher education to make a breakthrough. "If we do not seize the opportunity, seize the power, it means we are at fault," the Minister emphasized.

According to the Minister, similar to the reorganization of provinces and cities, the reorganization of educational institutions must certainly be carried out; it is an order, there is no need to ask the question "should or should not".

The restructuring will be carried out with great determination. In the coming time, the Ministry will develop a plan and report to the Prime Minister on this policy.

The head of the education sector added that in the university sector, after the major restructuring, there will be designated units that will not be selected for integration and restructuring.

Mr. Son emphasized that there will be a scenario for each educational institution, in order to have the best personnel plan. The Ministry of Education and Training is proposing that, for each specific case, it will assign personnel.

“Although the educational institutions have just finished their congress, I think that in the face of the new situation, this is the time for a breakthrough.

Schools must prepare to be "happy in all situations", leaders of educational institutions must be impartial and not ask "where am I sitting", said the Minister of Education and Training.

Grand arrangement of 140 public universities

Excluding the police, military and private sectors, our country has about 140 public universities. The Minister of Education and Training said that at present, it is not possible to announce the number of universities that will decrease, but it will certainly decrease significantly in the near future.

It is possible that schools under central management will be managed locally. It is possible that schools under local management will be merged into the central government. It is possible that schools under central management will merge with each other or some schools will be dissolved. In particular, some schools that are close to each other in terms of fields will merge to reduce fragmentation and develop better.

The head of the education sector called on teachers, within the next 3 months, to think together about how to develop their units, take advantage of the great opportunities that the Party and Government have given them, and prepare for the future, instead of looking at each other and worrying about fighting.

Faced with a major policy, many experts, leaders, former leaders of universities, researchers, lecturers, etc. also came up with new ideas for the major restructuring.

Organizing educational institutions is a political task and mission.

Prof. Dr. Pham Hong Quang, Party Secretary and Chairman of the Council of Thai Nguyen University, emphasized that the reorganization and planning of the university network is an important political task and mission, necessary in the current context.

He said this is an opportunity to develop education, but also comes with many challenges.

According to Professor Quang, weak units should merge with stronger educational institutions to develop together. However, the merger should not be mechanical, unlike the merger of administrative units. Because universities are public service units, they do not depend too much on the state budget.

Besides, some cases of political positions require another approach.

Students of Hanoi University of Science and Technology (Photo: Duy Thanh).

"The merger is an order, but I believe we will have a way to make educational institutions "convinced". The order must reach people's hearts and have a clear direction," Mr. Quang shared.

He added that it is necessary to determine which are key universities and which are satellites, as Thai Nguyen University has built before.

Sharing the same view, Dr. Le Truong Tung, Chairman of the Board of FPT University, shared that the arrangement of public higher education institutions is the next step in the arrangement roadmap according to the State's policy that has been implemented very consistently since the beginning of the year.

This roadmap starts with the arrangement of provinces and cities, to ministries and sectors, and now to public service units, including schools, hospitals, etc., to reduce the number of focal points.

“This is a political task and mission, aiming to reduce direct state investment costs, optimize organization and make administration easier,” said Dr. Le Truong Tung.

According to Dr. Le Truong Tung, the current structure of public universities has a principal and a chairman of the university council, in which the chairman of the university council can also be the Party Committee secretary as in some previous resolutions.

With the current direction, these two positions are one, there is no longer a school council. In addition to the work that the Party Committee is doing now, some of the tasks of the school council may be held by the Party Committee concurrently. At that time, the position of principal and school council will only have one person. With this method, a series of positions have been streamlined.

Merging schools, for example 3 schools into one, then 6 positions of principal and chairman of the school board, or even 9 positions will be reduced to one. This will greatly change the organizational structure, reducing the number of contacts for more centralized management.

Dr. Le Truong Tung said that merging to reduce the number of connections is important for support facilities to develop together.

He gave an example: in the past, some provinces and cities paid the State budget, while some provinces and cities received annual funding from the State. When merging and combining weak provinces into strong provinces, they will become a developed "couple" or "trio", no longer considering receiving budget from one province to fund another.

Similarly, the merger of higher education institutions is also a problem for development.

Students of National Economics University (Photo: School Fanpage)

“In my opinion, if we try to arrange in a direction that is both geographically close and functionally relevant, it is most suitable. For small provinces that are close to each other, how many public universities can be merged into one, to become a multidisciplinary school and optimize stronger professions.

On the other hand, schools with specialized fields such as law, banking, pedagogy, etc. in the same area should be merged together to form a strong school, not necessarily scattered," said Dr. Le Truong Tung.

This person also proposed that merger plans should be implemented early, and that there must be a new name for candidates to register for admission from the beginning of 2026, to avoid the situation where after registration, the school no longer exists.

Restructuring is not about shrinking, but about upgrading and global integration

Mr. Nguyen Quang Huy, CEO of the Faculty of Finance and Banking, Nguyen Trai University, emphasized that in the 21st century, national competitiveness does not only lie in resources or capital, but the core is high-quality human resources.

Countries that have grown strongly all have strategies focused on building leading training and research centers that can produce elite human resources to respond to the rapid changes in science, technology and the digital economy.

In Vietnam, the university system has grown rapidly in number, but is still fragmented, has overlapping fields, has limited resources and lacks strong convergence. This makes it difficult for us to create world-class universities that are competitive and regional leaders.

“In that context, streamlining, merging, and restructuring become urgent requirements, not to shrink, but to raise the level and integrate globally,” Mr. Quang Huy commented.

He further analyzed that a concern often raised is whether streamlining will narrow the "door to university" and make competition more fierce, but in reality, streamlining does not mean cutting down on opportunities.

The expert pointed out three open opportunities.

First, reorganize the system to eliminate dispersion, focusing resources on facilities with strong development capacity.

Second, improve the quality of learning experience. Students learn in a standardized environment with guaranteed facilities, teaching staff and training programs.

Third, diversify learning pathways. In addition to university, expand opportunities for vocational education, lifelong learning, and training according to business needs.

The CEO affirmed: "Opportunities are not lost, but become fairer and of higher quality."

According to the planning of the network of higher education and pedagogical institutions for the 2021-2030 period previously issued by the Ministry of Education and Training, large higher education centers will be formed, with about 50 to 60 higher education institutions training to the doctoral level.

In particular, a number of public universities will be reorganized; and pedagogical universities in physical education, sports, and arts will be reorganized.

Restructure and develop technical pedagogical universities into multi-disciplinary, multi-field higher education institutions with a focus on technology and engineering.

For pedagogical colleges, the direction of arrangement and organization is to merge with a pedagogical university or a multi-disciplinary, multi-field university (with a school, faculty of pedagogy or basic sciences).

Merge into a local or regional higher education institution. Merge or consolidate with several other local educational institutions.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/giao-duc/sap-xep-cac-truong-dai-hoc-la-menh-lenh-chien-luoc-de-but-pha-20250923080141277.htm