Over 100 universities ‘owe’ standards for graduates

VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Education and Training asked universities to announce their standards for graduates prior to the end of 2008. However, to date, only three universities have announced the standard quality of their graduates, while the other 100 universities still ‘owe’ their standards.

Compilation work unfinished

The Ministry of Education and Training asked universities to announce their standards for graduates prior to the end of 2008

At the conference on university training quality held in early 2008, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Thien Nhan asked universities to announce the quality standards for their graduates, which Nhan said was very important to improve the quality of university training.

To date, in the south, only two universities have officially announced the standard quality for their graduates, the HCM City University of Technical Education and HCM City Economics University. In the north, only the University of Trade has announced the standards.

Dr. Nguyen Thanh Nam, Head of the Training Division of the HCM City University of Technology, said that its faculties have finished compiling the quality standard, and that the university will announce the standards after editing.

What is noteworthy is that all the universities which have announced standards set the TOEIC mark at 450 as the standard.

Tran The Hoang, Head of the Training Division under the HCM City Economics University, said that TOEIC will be applied for the 34^th class and afterwards, while the standards will not be applied to students of previous classes.

A lot of universities said that they have not begun building up standards yet. President of the Thang Long University Phan Huy Phu said that “The quality standards for graduates are just the training purposes,” adding that the university will just have to report to the Ministry of Education and Training the training purposes as the quality standards for graduates.

Sharing the same view, Head of the Training Division under the Hanoi University of Technology Hoang Minh Son, said that when building the curriculum for every branch, the university sets the goals for the studies which students need to obtain after the training courses. Therefore, if students can reach the goals, it means that they can meet the expectations of the training courses, and they can meet the quality standards for graduates.

Is it necessary to build up standards?

While some universities think that the quality standards for graduates are the same with the training purposes of study branches, President of Trade University, Nguyen Bach Khoa, said he can see some differences between the training purposes and quality standards for graduates.

Khoa said that his university has finished compiling the standards partially because it fears that the Ministry of Education and Training will cut the enrolment quotas. However, Khoa said that he finds it a necessity, as the standards can help better assess the training quality and help heighten the lecturers’ responsibility.

Associate Professor Dr. Thai Ba Can, President of the HCM City University of Technical Education, also said that the training purposes prove to not be concrete, with which learners do not know if they can meet the required standards or not. The employers also do not know if they can employ the right candidates.

Therefore, Can believes that the announcement of the quality standards proves to be very necessary. With the standards, learners can know what they need to learn to meet the standards and what they will get after the training courses.

The HCM City Economics University also considers the quality standards for graduates as the legal basis for the university in producing the students who can meet the requirements of the society.

Kieu Oanh