VietNamNet Bridge
March. 3th, 2010

A lot of problems have been found by the delegation of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee when it had working sessions with 40 universities.

Problems have been found in the procedures to establish schools, open new study branches, decide the number of students to be enrolled, and especially, the school network development.

In many localities, schools have been set up spontaneously without consideration for the socio-economic development in the localities and the local demand.

According to Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly’s Committee for Culture, Education, Youth and Children Le Minh Hong, one of the biggest problems of universities is the lack of lecturers. Most of surveyed universities have the ratio of students per one lecturer higher the required level.

The problem especially serious at non-state universities, where there are few permanent lecturers and most of them are visiting lecturers. Especially, the material facilities at the schools remain very poor.

Many universities have blamed the low state’s investment on the poor material facilities, just five million dong per student per annum. However, Chairman of the National Assembly’s Committee for Culture, Education, Youth and Children pointed out that the budget for education could not be higher, and that schools would be better to mobilize sources from the society.

Universities have complained that they do not have land to build their headquarters. Professor Nguyen Van Nam from the Hanoi Economics University, said that all universities, ‘every man for himself’, are rushing to seek land for their headquarters. Nam stressed that the State should set up a clear programme on school network development to improve the situation.

Deputy Director of the Hanoi National University Nguyen Huu Duc feels happy because the university has been allocated a land plot on Lang-Hoa Lac area to build its headquarter. However, he is still worried about the long distance between the lecturers’ houses and the university

The Hanoi University wants the city’s authorities to allocate to it the 10,000 square metre land in front of the university. In fact, the land plot was allocated to the university 10 years ago, but it is still being used by local farmers as … rice field.

According to the Hanoi Business and Technology University, in order to obtain ‘clean land’ for building school, it is necessary to have eight signatures from government agencies. Meanwhile, it takes four months on average to ‘go through’ one door to get one signature.

There are 96 universities and junior colleges now operational in Hanoi, including 40 schools which have to relocate to suburb areas.