They fail to update their course contents, the faculty to student ratio is unacceptable, the credit-hour system remains an orphan, and much besides.

While 14 of the 20 universities assessed meet all the criteria in having a clear mission, a concept that is very new to some, only eight are considered effective in their management and operation, and none comply with all the standards set for study programs and curricula.

Some have not established a university council, and the councils that do exist are mostly inefficient.

Course content is also criticized in the report. The majority of the 20 universities do not update their curricula and syllabi often enough, and still offer courses without having sufficient study and reference materials available.

Some engage in joint teaching programs with foreign institutions without regard for quality and without making sure that their foreign partners are legitimate or that their diplomas and degrees are worth anything.

In compiling its report, the department examined the progress of the 20 select universities in the 2005-2008 period.

Their number includes prestigious names like the University of Humanities and Social Sciences under the Vietnam National University Hanoi, Hanoi University of Education, Foreign Trade University, Nha Trang University, and the University of Agriculture and Forestry in Ho Chi Minh City and HCMC University of Education.

To some extent the assessment does reflect the problems plaguing Vietnam’s higher education system but that does not mean the universities aren’t making good progress, according to some experts.

Dr. Le Van Hao, director of the Department of Educational Quality Assurance and Testing at Nha Trang University, wrote in an email interview with Thanh Nien Weekly that the department’s assessment relied on a set of criteria issued by the ministry in 2004.

It requires schools to satisfy all these criteria if they want “Level 3” status, the highest level in Vietnam.

“It’s understandable that none of the universities chosen for this assessment satisfy all the criteria at this stage,” Hao wrote.

“But it is unreasonable to rely solely on the report and say that not a single Vietnamese university can offer a good education since quality here is weighed on many different scales.”

Nguyen Van Minh, director of the Quality Assurance Center at the Foreign Trade University in Hanoi, has closely followed his school’s progress in quality assurance over the past couple of years.

Minh says the concept of quality assurance in higher education is new to Vietnamese schools.

While some have questioned the integrity of the report, Minh noted that two foreign organizations were also involved: the Netherlands Association of Universities of Applied Sciences (HBO-raad) and US Education Testing Services.

He sees the report as a warm-up and says Vietnam hopes to have all its universities assessed and ranked by an independent organization in the future.

“The ministry wants us to get familiar with quality assurance in higher education since, in the past, we thought of educational quality as something too hard to measure.”

Hao thinks the ministry should release the report to the public so that “there’s a clear understanding of the educational standards at these universities.”

Reported by Huong Le