College Alignment: How to Make It Work?

TPO - Dr. Le Viet Khuyen, Vice President of the Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges, said that the arrangement and merger of universities is necessary, but it needs to be carried out based on scientific and strict principles and criteria, avoiding a commanding or mechanical approach.

The reality of small, fragmented universities

Sir, the Ministry of Education and Training is implementing a policy of restructuring the university system, aiming at focused investment and more effective operations. In the current context, what is your assessment of this policy?

For a long time, university education has become a core part of the development strategy of most countries. There are three major trends that are strongly influencing the operation and reform of university education in the world, including: The trend of multi-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary, multi-functional universities; The trend of centralization and restructuring of the system through mergers or partnerships; The trend of increasing autonomy.

Many countries such as France, Germany and the Netherlands... have implemented a policy of merging small or scattered universities, forming multidisciplinary universities that are internationally competitive.

Experts say that the arrangement of universities in the current context is appropriate.

In Asia, Korea, China and Singapore have all had large-scale reforms. For example, Singapore, with its model of few but streamlined schools and international positioning, has formed universities such as NUS or NTU, all of which are products of restructuring and mergers.

I think we cannot stand outside these trends. Vietnam currently has more than 600 universities and colleges, most of which are small in scale, with a narrow scope of operations, and the quality of training and research does not meet the requirements of socio-economic development.

Many universities in Vietnam were established on the basis of upgrading from colleges, but lack a modern university management foundation. Universities in the same locality or in the same profession often train in similar majors, leading to unhealthy competition and waste of resources.

Except for a few large universities such as: National University, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Hanoi Medical University..., most Vietnamese universities are not well-known in the region, not to mention internationally.

As a result, the Vietnamese university system finds it difficult to create truly leading schools, while the entire social resources are divided into small, ineffective pieces.

Without breakthrough changes, Vietnamese university education will face serious consequences such as: declining quality, wasting public resources, losing opportunities to compete internationally and struggling in regional rankings.

Dr. Le Viet Khuyen, Vice President of the Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges.

Vietnam is facing the need to transform its growth model, moving towards a knowledge-based economy, based on science, technology and innovation. Thus, merging small universities is a mandatory requirement to achieve the goal that by 2045, Vietnam will have a strong university system capable of training high-quality human resources.

Don't do it "one shot and done"

The reorganization of universities has attracted public attention in recent times. In order for the process of merging universities to not become a mechanical “administrative” process that causes chaos, in what direction do you think it should be implemented, sir?

To be effective, the merger needs to ensure principles of public interest, respect for university autonomy, transparency and criteria.

The merger is not simply to reduce the number of training facilities, but to optimize resources, improve training and research quality, and better serve the needs of learners and society.

Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son affirmed that the spirit of reorganization is to strengthen educational institutions, to make investments more focused, important and effective. Fragmented schools, small schools, schools with difficulty recruiting students, schools that do not ensure quality, including public and private schools, will be the first to be reviewed and reorganized.

The merger process must be public, clearly explaining the reasons, criteria, and roadmap, avoiding administrative imposition and causing confusion for lecturers and students.

Besides, mergers should not be carried out "in one shot", but need to be tested, evaluated, and adjusted to avoid causing shock and wasting resources.

Not all schools can merge with each other. Mergers need to be based on strict, scientific criteria to form sustainable multidisciplinary universities.

For example, it is necessary to take into account the geographical location, and prioritize merging schools in the same area (city, province) to take advantage of common infrastructure and reduce management costs. Avoid merging schools that are far apart, causing difficulties for students and lecturers in studying and teaching.

In terms of training, schools with complementary training majors will form a multi-disciplinary university when merged, avoiding mechanical mergers between schools with too many overlapping majors, which can easily lead to conflicts and excess human resources.

It is advisable to merge schools with the same mission but different strengths. For example, one school is strong in engineering, the other is strong in socio-economics. This helps to form universities with interdisciplinary capacity, easily participating in national and international research programs.

Or in terms of scale, schools under 3,000 students should consider merging to take advantage of resources.

Priority should be given to establishing regional and international research universities in the country's economic, political and social centers such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hue, and Da Nang. Each economic region should have at least one multidisciplinary university with an applied orientation, large enough to serve both local human resource needs and gradually integrate internationally.

In addition, each province should have at least one multi-disciplinary university of the "community university" type with a scale that both serves the direct human resource needs of the province and contributes to raising the intellectual level of the local community.

New governance mechanism soon

What impacts might this university merger have on education and training activities? And how is the industry preparing for a governance model when the University Council ceases its role?

After abolishing the University Council, a new governance mechanism needs to be put in place to apply to newly formed universities after the merger. In particular, the leader needs to have university governance capacity and academic knowledge, not just a political position.

Merging universities will have positive impacts such as increasing the efficiency of resource use. Universities can share common facilities such as libraries, laboratories, dormitories, etc. Lecturers will be allocated more reasonably, especially in fields with surplus or shortage of human resources.

Help to form multidisciplinary universities large enough to participate in international rankings and compete regionally. A multidisciplinary university with large scale and high prestige will attract domestic and international students. On the other hand, the State can easily allocate research budget in a centralized manner, instead of dividing it into small, fragmented areas.

Foreign partners also prioritize cooperation with large-scale schools, instead of many small, scattered schools.

However, if the merger is carried out without innovation in the management mechanism, it will only make the apparatus bloated, with many intermediate levels, reducing the efficiency of management. This has happened to some "national universities" and "regional universities" in Vietnam, where the management mechanism has become cumbersome, overlapping, inactive, and unable to promote the combined strength.

Therefore, the Ministry of Education and Training needs to design a modern management mechanism and clearly explain the reasons, benefits and commitments to ensure the rights of lecturers, students and alumni. At the same time, have a reasonable human resource policy, retain good lecturers, arrange fair arrangements, and avoid the "loser" mentality after the merger.

From the way countries around the world have arranged and merged schools, we can draw a lesson for Vietnam that it should not be based on administrative orders but must be linked to the national science and technology development strategy.

In my opinion, first of all, it is necessary to establish a basic framework of principles to regulate the entire merger process, including a legal framework and mechanism to ensure publicity and transparency; shape a governance model; have a human resources policy and development motivation, protect the rights of lecturers and staff; learn from world models...

The responsibility of universities is to dare to accept change, putting the national interest and the academic community above local interests. The future of the Vietnamese university system depends on which path we choose: an easy but short-term path – merging by order to create “super universities” that only exist on paper; or a more difficult but sustainable path – merging based on the principles of transparency, autonomy, and social responsibility.

Thank you!

Source: https://tienphong.vn/sap-xep-cac-truong-dai-hoc-lam-the-nao-moi-hieu-qua-post1790873.tpo