Restructuring public universities: A strategic turning point

GD&TĐ - University restructuring is not only about rearranging but also about innovating administration and improving the quality of training and research.

When implementing the strategy, with a long-term vision, Vietnamese higher education can transform strongly, integrate deeply and improve global competitiveness.

Dr. Le Dong Phuong - former Director of the Center for Higher Education Research (Vietnam Institute of Educational Sciences ): Maintain old values, create new values

Dr. Le Dong Phuong.

Restructuring higher education is not only an organizational merger, but more deeply, a comprehensive reform of the school's management thinking and training mission. From an external management perspective, this is how managers and stakeholders perceive the structural change of the system. For insiders, it is a process of shifting and rearranging the positions of staff and lecturers within the framework of new units formed from the merger of old facilities.

More importantly, it is necessary to adjust the management and governance thinking in higher education institutions, aiming to form a lean operating model that is more adaptable to changes. This requires courage to overcome old habits and routines - which is not easy.

In addition, creating a unique identity for the new educational institution is also a vital factor. This is demonstrated through the arrangement and adjustment of training programs to suit the needs of the labor market and the expectations of learners, while ensuring that the interests of learners and stakeholders are always put first.

The merger of several higher education institutions into a new entity inevitably poses challenges in terms of organizational model and operation. This model can be imposed from the outside or formed from internal initiative, but either way there is a potential risk of conflict between different interest groups. The transition period often makes the apparatus cumbersome, with personnel redundancies appearing in most member units.

Therefore, the most important thing is to reach consensus on the development path, along with specific measures to reconcile the interests of all parties. The restructuring process needs to be carried out in a spirit of consensus and solidarity, because the common goal is greater than individual interests. The steps must be carefully considered, have sufficient arguments and be discussed at many levels, absolutely avoiding the mentality of "doing it if you like".

Restructuring may not bring about an immediate breakthrough for Vietnamese higher education, because a training institution can only develop sustainably when it is based on history, academic tradition and close connections with learners and partners. Merging too many schools may lose accumulated values, while not necessarily creating new, better values.

To turn the expectations of leaders into reality, schools need to clearly define their core mission and long-term vision, because that mission cannot be copied between schools. The prerequisite is that managers and training facilities must identify their strengths and limitations, and at the same time have the opportunity to convince state management agencies of their intrinsic value.

On that basis, the State can develop a comprehensive restructuring plan, essentially a new master plan for the Vietnamese higher education system, reflecting the vision, values ​​and expectations of society. In this plan, schools need to be arranged to take advantage of their inherent values, while creating the premise for new values ​​to form. In particular, a priority criterion is the level of contribution of each higher education institution to local socio -economic development, instead of only focusing on economic efficiency.

At the system level, restructuring needs to take into account the characteristics of each type of training program and educational institution. Applied training directions need to be developed more strongly to serve socio-economic development; while research-oriented programs must be linked to scientific and technological activities of schools and lecturers, aiming to create new scientific knowledge instead of just training skills.

For this process to be successful, resource conditions need to be ensured and maintained continuously. Existing resources should not be cut abruptly but should be adjusted appropriately to avoid operational disruption; at the same time, new resources identified in Resolution 71 need to be provided at a level large enough to bring about substantial results.

Dr. Hoang Ngoc Vinh - former Director of the Department of Vocational Education (Ministry of Education and Training): Avoid falling into the "ask - give" mechanism, heavy administrative management

Dr. Hoang Ngoc Vinh.

Many people are concerned that the arrangement and merger of higher education institutions may only stop at the “mechanical addition” between schools, while the differences in academic culture, professions and operating mechanisms are very large. This concern is completely grounded. If it stops at the mere matter of combining names and mechanically merging, the process will certainly fail.

The success of restructuring must be based on the stratification of higher education institutions according to their missions and tasks: leading research schools focus on basic sciences, applied schools closely linked to the needs of businesses and localities, and teacher training schools take on the role of training human resources for the education sector.

On this hierarchical basis, each school needs to promote its own strengths, while sharing resources with partners. The core element is a clear governance model, high accountability, accompanied by strong enough investment to create real change, not just “changing the nameplate”.

The governance model and autonomy mechanism after the merger are also key. In the context of the abolition of the University Council, some proposals are aiming to bring higher education institutions under the management of local authorities. However, administrative management and university operation are two different cultures. If we consider universities as administrative units, it is easy to fall into the inertia of "asking - giving", cumbersome procedures, losing creativity and autonomy.

When autonomy has no basis, it is easily overwhelmed by administrative authority, while there is a lack of mechanism to force schools to be accountable for training quality and budget efficiency. Therefore, instead of “localizing” management, it is necessary to build an independent Academic Council with the participation of businesses and related parties. This model both maintains academic autonomy and promotes the connection between schools and the labor market, while ensuring a transparent mechanism and clear accountability.

The criteria for selecting schools to be reorganized and merged must also be developed objectively, publicly and transparently, exceeding the minimum standards set by the Ministry of Education and Training. The evaluation should be multidimensional, including academic capacity, teaching staff, facilities, student employment performance and financial autonomy.

In particular, the central measure must be the level of meeting human resource needs to serve economic development and innovation of the locality and region. If training is not linked to regional development strategies, even if it meets standards, it will still be out of place.

A clear and public set of criteria not only helps to choose the right subjects to be arranged, but also creates social consensus, reducing reactions or dissatisfaction among lecturers and students. When they see the process is transparent and oriented towards sustainable development, they will trust more, instead of thinking that this is just an imposed administrative decision.

Dr. Le Viet Khuyen - Vice President of the Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges: Need a strong university system

Dr. Le Viet Khuyen.

Over the first two decades of the 21st century, higher education has become a core component in the development strategies of most countries. From a global perspective, three major trends are strongly influencing the operation and reform of higher education: multi-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary, multi-functional universities; the trend of centralization and restructuring the system through mergers or affiliations; the trend of increasing autonomy accompanied by social accountability.

In Europe, the Bologna process has created a unified higher education space, forcing universities to adjust their training models, governance structures and development strategies. Many countries, notably France, Germany and the Netherlands, have merged small or dispersed universities to form multidisciplinary universities that are internationally competitive.

In Asia, South Korea, China and Singapore have also undertaken large-scale reforms. China has implemented a wave of university mergers since the late 1990s, creating institutions with tens of thousands of students, closely linking training, research and innovation. Singapore, with its model of few but streamlined schools and international positioning, is also a product of the restructuring and merger process.

Therefore, Vietnam cannot stand outside these trends. A fragmented and dispersed higher education system will find it difficult to integrate, and even more difficult to gain a position in international rankings. We are facing the requirement to transform the growth model, towards a knowledge-based economy based on science, technology and innovation. To achieve the goal of becoming a high-income developed country by 2045, Vietnam needs a strong university system with the capacity to train high-quality human resources and produce new knowledge.

In that context, maintaining a decentralized, inefficient system is not only wasteful but also holds back national development. Merging universities to form large-scale, multidisciplinary universities with interdisciplinary research and training capacity is a strategic solution. This is not only an educational requirement but also a political decision linked to the future of the nation.

To prevent the merger process from becoming mechanical "administrative", causing disruption and negative reactions in society, in addition to establishing fundamental principles, the merger needs to be based on strict, scientific criteria, aiming to form a sustainable multidisciplinary university.

Regarding geography: Prioritize schools in the same area (city, province) to take advantage of common infrastructure, reduce management costs; avoid grouping schools far apart, causing difficulties for students and lecturers.

Regarding training fields: Schools have complementary majors, when merged, it will create a multi-disciplinary university; avoid mechanical mergers between schools with overlapping majors, which can easily lead to conflicts and excess human resources.

Regarding research and training capacity: Schools with the same mission but different strengths should be merged (for example, one school is strong in engineering, one school is strong in socio-economics), creating an interdisciplinary university that can easily participate in national and international research.

Regarding scale and operational efficiency: Small-scale schools (under 3,000 students) should consider merging; low-efficiency schools with unassured quality should also be included in the merger.

Regarding national strategy: Prioritize the formation of regional and international research universities in economic, political and social centers (Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hue, Da Nang). Each economic region should have at least one multidisciplinary university of sufficient size, serving both local human resources and international integration.

In addition, each province should have at least one multi-disciplinary - multi-level "community university"-style university with a reasonable scale, both meeting direct human resource needs and improving the local intellectual level.

Possible merger model:

Complete merger: Schools are deleted, merged into new universities with completely different names, creating new entities, designing modern governance mechanisms; the disadvantage is that it is easy to cause reactions and lose traditional identity.

Confederation-style association: Schools keep their own names but are members of large universities (National University, Regional University model). Preserving the identity of each school, easy to accept by society, but prone to localism, lack of unity in administration.

Hybrid model: Some schools fully merge, others form a consortium; flexible, shock-absorbing but governance can be complex and overlapping.

Associated school clusters: Individual facilities, which may have different training levels or classes, accept the "rules of the game" to form a cluster; recommended by the Ministry of Education and Training since 1993 but few schools apply it.

Regarding the post-merger governance mechanism, a key issue is which governance model will be applied. It is necessary to learn from current shortcomings and build a mechanism to replace the University Council. According to international experience, large multidisciplinary universities require a professional governance mechanism, in which the University Council plays a decisive role in strategy. If the trend of abolishing the University Council continues, the State needs to soon implement a new governance mechanism for universities formed after the merger.

After the merger, the principal must be an academic. The leader must have the capacity to manage the university and have academic knowledge, not just a political position. In addition, there must be a clear hierarchy: The university after the merger needs to have a hierarchy structure between the Central (university) and member units (affiliated schools), avoiding the situation of "duplication of power". - Dr. Le Viet Khuyen

Source: https://giaoducthoidai.vn/tai-cau-truc-truong-dai-hoc-cong-lap-buoc-ngoat-chien-luoc-post753945.html