Revising the University Education Law guidelines to help schools overcome the crisis

From this reality, the Ministry of Education and Training must find a way around it. That is the reason why the Ministry of Education and Training proposed to amend the decree.

K CRISIS OF LACK OF UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS

Recently, there have been crisis situations of lack of principals at schools: Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technical Education, University of Electricity (before that, University of Industrial Fine Arts). All of these schools have one thing in common: they failed to successfully organize the Party Congress. The Congress failed to elect a new Party Committee, so there was no Party leadership in personnel work; thereby affecting planning and personnel selection. These factors directly affected the issue of perfecting the School Council (SSC), followed by a series of tasks in the organization of the apparatus. After that, the Ministry of Education and Training had to intervene, coordinate with Party agencies to resolve the issue.

According to Mr. Hoang Minh Son, Deputy Minister of Education and Training, the keyword of the draft Decree amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 99/2019/ND-CP (hereinafter referred to as the draft) is "resolving", stemming from the shortcomings discovered in the process of implementing Decree 99/2019/ND-CP (hereinafter referred to as Decree 99), issued in December 2019, focusing mainly on the issue of organizational structure.

Students of Ho Chi Minh City University of Technical Education during an internship. This is one of the schools experiencing a crisis situation with a lack of principals.

JADE PEACH

Recently, the Ministry of Education and Training surveyed the impact of the revised Law on HigherEducation (also known as Law 34) and found that a crisis had occurred in some schools. Although the number was only "countable on the fingers" compared to the total of 234 schools, it was due to the lack of uniformity in the legal document system, so amending Decree 99 was necessary.

One of the most notable contents of the draft is to define the concept of "authority to appoint and recognize" for principals of public universities. According to Mr. Nguyen Viet Loc, Director of the Department of Organization and Personnel (Ministry of Education and Training), current legal regulations do not specifically stipulate that the competent authority to appoint principals of public universities is the Board of Directors or the direct management agency.

Pursuant to current legal regulations, the "authority to appoint and recognize" management officials is the authority to evaluate and classify the quality of officials, resolve complaints and denunciations, and handle disciplinary actions against management officials. The Ministry of Education and Training proposes to amend Decree 99 in the direction that the direct management agency performs the role of the "authority to appoint and recognize". Specifically, the direct management agency decides to assign the principal or assign responsibility for the school in the following two cases: for newly established universities; for universities that have been without a principal for more than 6 months and have not yet submitted a request for recognition of the principal to the direct management agency.

The Board of Directors has 5 out-of-school seats, the Managing Board holds all 5.

One content of the draft is the proposal that the number of representatives directly appointed by the management agency should not exceed 50% of the total number of members outside the university. According to Mr. Loc, this content comes from the fact that some ministries in charge show an intentional attempt to control the number of votes in the Council by appointing the maximum number of their representatives that they can have to participate in the Council.

Situations that have occurred at universities such as Ton Duc Thang have caused the Ministry of Education and Training to propose amending Decree 99.

JADE PEACH

For example, according to Law 34, the Board of Directors includes people from outside the school, and accounts for no more than 30% of the total Board of Directors. There are small schools with only 15 members on the Board of Directors, while according to regulations, there will be 5 members from outside the school. If the governing ministry sends 5 representatives to this Board of Directors, there will be no room for other members from outside the school. "The governing ministry has the right to manage the school's finances/assets (as the owner), manage civil servants and public employees working at the school... by specialized laws. As for the officials of the governing ministry participating in the Board of Directors, they are only representatives, and must act in the role of representatives; sending people to gain an overwhelming majority of votes to control the Board of Directors is contrary to the spirit of university autonomy of Law 34," said Mr. Loc.

One point that the Ministry proposed to amend is the regulation that when it is necessary to organize a conference of delegates to elect and replace a member of the Board of Directors, it is only necessary to convene at least 20% of the total number of officials and employees instead of 50% as currently stipulated in Decree 99. Mr. Loc explained: "There are very large units, with up to 4,000 people, so it is necessary to organize a meeting of 2,000 people, which is very difficult to implement. We consulted the Party's regulations and found that the most important thing is the method of selecting representatives, not the number, to ensure democracy. This method will be stipulated by the schools in the organization and operation regulations. The way of discussing this method of selecting representatives at the schools is democratic, so there is no need for too many participants."

The draft also includes amendments and supplements to specific regulations on procedures for replacing members of the Board of Directors, especially for members who are representatives of direct management agencies. When they have resigned or transferred to other jobs, the direct management agency can immediately replace them without requiring a written request from the Board of Directors as is currently the case.

Originating from internal school problems

According to the analysis of Deputy Minister Hoang Minh Son, the underlying problem of the principal shortage crisis originates from within the schools, which is why the congresses cannot be held or the congresses cannot elect new committees. This could be due to internal conflicts, lack of human resources, or abuse of power. These problems have always existed, but Law 34 and Decree 99 help make the university environment more democratic, so many internal stories are revealed.

"Previously, when similar incidents occurred, the superior management agency could handle them immediately by assigning someone to be the principal, acting principal, or in charge... Law 34 and Decree 99 do not allow this, but there is no solution yet. Therefore, the Ministry of Education and Training proposed to include this content in the draft Decree amending Decree 99. For example, when the Board of Directors lacks a chairman, who will replace him? Or if there is a principal shortage but no Board of Directors, who will decide on the appointment of the principal?...", Deputy Minister Son said.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/sua-huong-dan-luat-giao-duc-dh-giup-truong-thao-go-khung-hoang-185230410122532139.htm