LookAtVietnam Bridge – The university explosion and the high enrollment of students in recent years have led to a serious shortage of professors in universities, especially at privately endowed universities.

The university explosion and the high enrollment of students in recent years have led to a serious shortage of professors in universities

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, Vietnam had 40 additional universities in 2007-2008, and 97 new universities in 2005-2007.

In five years, from 2001 to 2006, the number of students taking regular training courses increased by 7.36%, while non-regular training students rose by 7.49%, and post-university training students by 25%, year after year. Meanwhile, the number of professors has not seen any considerable increase for several years.

The Deputy Minister of Education and Training, Banh Tien Long, acknowledged that the number of professors can meet just 60% of the demand, which has led to limited training quality.

Universities have been trying to raise the numbers of professors by asking first laureates and excellent students to work for the universities after graduation. However, not many students want to work for the universities as they can easily find other jobs with a higher income.

Universities have also been trying to persuade persons now working in businesses, who have gotten a great deal of experience from their work, to work as professors. However, not many universities can satisfy their requirements on salaries and other conditions.

The Information Technology Faculty of the Hanoi Pedagogical University has recently announced that it wants to recruit 5-8 professors. The candidates for the posts must have master’s degrees, doctorates, or be the students in graduate universities at a ‘good’ and ‘excellent’ level.

The Economics University under Da Nang University, the Information Technology Faculty under the Cryptography Technique Academy, Hung Yen Technique Pedagogical University, and the Finance Academy now plan to recruit 27 professors each, while the HCM City Open University needs to employ 94 professors. Some universities said they would even recruit retired doctors, and set no limitations on number of professors to be recruited.

Experts have attributed the serious shortage of professors to the lack of a long term strategy on professor development. Currently, the average ratio of professors to students in Vietnam is 1/28, while the figures are 1/15 or 1/20 in other countries. The ratio is much higher in privately endowed universities: there is only one professor for every 30 students.

Nguyen Huu Vien, Headmaster of the Agriculture University No. 1, said that the increase of the number of professors is only equal to 1/10 of the increase in the number of students

The university had 475 professors in 2001, and the figure rose to 527 in 2007, which meant there were 52 more professors in those five years.

Vietnam is striving to have 288 more universities by 2020, raising the total number of universities to 600, and to have 4.3-4.5mil students by that time. To achieve that plan Vietnam needs to have at least 220 more professors.

To meet that, Vietnam will need to hire over 12,000 professors every year, at least, in order to have an adequate number of professors for its universities and colleges. This will not prove to be an easy task to implement, which means that Vietnam will be thirsty for professors for quite some years to come.

(Source: Dan tri)