'Floating' university

TP - Unable to recruit students, "struggling" to survive is the current situation of many universities. The consequence of this situation is the question of the quality of human resources.

Unable to recruit students

Luong The Vinh University (formerly Nam Dinh )

Luong The Vinh University (formerly Nam Dinh) will enroll 10 majors in 2024, but 7 majors will have less than 10 students enrolled: English has 3/300 students enrolled (meeting the enrollment target of 1%); Electronic Engineering Technology has 5/133 students enrolled (meeting nearly 4%), Traffic Engineering has 4/143 students enrolled; Information Technology has 8/151 students enrolled; Finance and Banking has 5/125 students enrolled; Accounting has 9/124 students enrolled and Business Administration has 8/130 students enrolled. In 2023, these majors will all enroll less than 10 students.

The Traditional Medicine Doctor program has the highest enrollment of Luong The Vinh University in 2024 with 52/470 targets (over 10%); the Veterinary Medicine program has recruited 21/225 candidates and the Construction Engineering program has recruited 10/225 targets.

Viet Tri University of Industry is in a similar situation. Up to now, reporters have only found information about the university's 2025 university admission announcement, and have not been able to access the admission plan. Based on the university's 2024 university admission plan, it can be seen that in 2023, the school recruited 307/1,710 students (reaching nearly 18% of the admission target). In many majors, the admission rate is very low. For example, the English language major has 3/80 students enrolled, the food technology major has 4/100 students enrolled, the environmental technology and chemical technology majors have 2/60 students enrolled. In 2022, a similar situation occurred when the enrollment only reached 287/1,930 students, and some majors only recruited 1 student, such as environmental engineering technology.

Difficulties in enrollment have forced some universities to stop enrolling. For example, in 2023 and 2024, Kinh Bac University (Bac Ninh) has stopped enrolling in 8 majors including: Architecture, graphic design, interior design, fashion design, construction management, state management, finance and banking, electronic and telecommunications engineering technology. From the decisions to recognize university admission candidates from 2020 to 2023 that Kinh Bac University has posted on its website, it can be seen that the school has almost no regular university enrollment quota for these 8 majors that have stopped enrolling.

Open up the "input", loosen up the "output"

Associate Professor Dr. Do Van Dung, former Principal of Ho Chi Minh City University of Technical Education, said that the training quality of each university depends on many different factors, but the most important is input quality.

However, in the current context, university revenues are increasing because non-public universities and public universities with financial autonomy mainly rely on tuition fees. Enrolling enough students means accepting low admission criteria and low competition.

Associate Professor Do Van Dung said that ensuring the quality of university output does not stop at tightening assessment standards but requires a comprehensive system, integrating factors from management, training programs to business cooperation. He proposed building and applying an international quality accreditation system instead of relying only on national standards, focusing on core criteria.

According to Mr. Dung, currently some universities are both “opening up” the entrance and “relaxing” the exit. Because if the exit standards are strict, the rate of students dropping out will increase. This leads to some schools not being able to ensure their income.

“The consequence is that training institutions do not gain the trust of employers because they believe that the training quality is not guaranteed. Agencies, organizations, and businesses do not believe in the degrees and transcripts of students. The scores are good, but students do not grasp professional knowledge and working skills and have difficulty finding jobs,” Associate Professor Do Van Dung acknowledged.

Mr. Dung said that the current problem is the conflict between training quality and tuition revenue. If the input is tightened, some universities will not be able to enroll students, will have no source of income and will have difficulty operating.

Source: https://tienphong.vn/truong-dai-hoc-lay-lat-post1768380.tpo