LookAtVietnam – With the familiar humor and intimacy, Professor Nguyen
Lan Dung, a well known Vietnamese scientists, met with scientists at the second
congress of the Scientific Association of human resources development in Vietnam
in January and shared stories about how to use talents.
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Juniors’ wages must not be higher than seniors’?
Dung said that he knows a PhD who returned to Vietnam from North America. The
local authorities of a big city in Vietnam invited him to work there and offered
the salary of 1000 dollars a month. This was really a high salary if compared
with the salaries of other civil servants, but was not high if compared with the
pays offered by foreign groups.
However, the PhD found it very difficult to work in the city, simply because he
was “boycotted” by the colleagues. This made him unable to cooperate with the
colleagues. Why? Because he just returned from an overseas training course, and
he had not had any contribution to the city’s development. Meanwhile, his salary
was still five times higher than the salaries of the people, who were once his
teachers several years ago.
“The salaries of juniors must be higher than the salaries of seniors. This is
the thought of Vietnamese people, though this is not a surprise at all in the
world,” Dung said.
Meanwhile, employers should not pay salaries after considering the degrees of
the employers, but pay for the efficiency of the works the employees can
fulfill. In order to do that, the employers need to find out how high the
qualifications the employees have in order to assign them work and pay them
money.
Dung has urged the Scientific Association for Human Resource Development to
consider drawing up the policy on using talents.
Every year, the National Assembly allocates the budget of 600 million dollars to
the scientific development. However, no one can see with their eyes the
scientific achievements, and no one can say for sure how the money has been
spent.
“How has the budget allocation for scientific research been allocated? If the
budget has been allocated in an ineffective way?” Dung questioned.
He has affirmed that 600 million dollars could be a modest sum of money for
other developed countries, but it has much significance for a developing country
like Vietnam.
Dung related that he began setting up the foundation and developed the Institute
of Microbiology and Biotechnology under the Hanoi National University with just
3 million dollars from the State budget. Meanwhile, the institute now can join
international cooperation effectively, while it has made the achievements which
can directly serve the production.
The leaders of the institute are brainstorming to try to set up a pilot workshop
which can makes products itself, which will allow to increase the modest income
of the intellectuals who are working for the institute. If the plan fails,
intellectuals would leave the institute. Analysts have also warned that with
unreasonable pay, ,big economic groups and companies would lure all the talents
from universities and research institutes.
PhDs leave research institutes, because they want to be rich
“I once advised a PhD to stay to work for a research institute for some more
time, saying that a lot of people had to undertake his works while he left for
the training course. However, he said that he was too poor and he needed to take
full advantage of the opportunity,” Dung recalled.
“It is really very difficult to invite talented people to Vietnam, if you just
offer them the most pay of 200 dollars. Meanwhile, in foreign countries, they
can earn 3000-4000 dollars,” Dung said
In fact, not all the Vietnamese students want to stay in foreign countries. A
lot of them want to return to Vietnam. However, they need to have two conditions
to work in Vietnam. First, their income needs to be high enough for their lives.
Second, they need good working conditions which allows them to use the trained
knowledge.
However, Dung admitted that it is very difficult to satisfy the two
requirements.
Nha Uyen