Students practice on lathes at the Vinh Pedagogical Technology University, located in Vinh City, Nghe An province (Photo VNA) HCM City (VNA)- A pedagogy university in Ho Chi Minh City is struggling financially afterimplementing a tuition-free policy issued twenty years ago.
Offering13 pedagogical majors, the HCM City University of Technology and Education hasbeen waiving tuition for all pedagogy students in the last decade in accordancewith the Government policy.
But with amajority of the students not pursuing a teaching career after graduation, thewaiver seems to be a huge waste, Dr Do Van Dung, the school’s principal, said at a conference on the impacts of thetuition-free policy on enrollment quality and teacher training.
Participants at theconference held in HCM City last week debated whether the policy shouldcontinue.
Thetuition-free policy was issued by the Government in 1998 as an incentive torecruit teachers. In lieu, the Government paid the pedagogical university a sumof money every year.
Dung said that while his school receives 5-8 billion VND (220,000-352,000USD) from the State per year, the school spends up to 30 billion VDN (1.3 millionUSD) per year to pay its lecturers and improve facilities.
“We have to spend that muchin order to ensure good teaching quality and provide students with goodeducational environment, and it is unfair to take money from other students tocover for the amount that pedagogical students don’t pay,” he said.
With ninety percent of theschool’s pedagogical graduates with distinction going to work for enterprisesinstead of pursuing a teaching career, the well-meaning tuition-free policy hassomewhat gone to waste, Dung added.
He proposed the policy bestopped and the pedagogy students asked to pay for their degrees. Scholarshipswill be provided for extremely poor students, he said.
Vietnam currently has about26,700 unemployed teachers. The number is estimated to reach up to 70,000 by2020, according to the Ministry of Education (MoET).
Huynh Cat Dung, a lecturerat the University of Physical Education and Sports, said that the policy shouldbe adjusted. “Waiving tuition fee for students decreases their motivation forstudying, as well as their interest and belief in their majors,” he said.
A survey done at apedagogical college in the southwestern region showed that 36 percent of itsfreshmen chose the pedagogical majors because they were free, Dung added. “Ifthat continues, it would be very hard to find a teacher who loves his or herjob,” he said.
Similar results emergedfrom a small-scale random survey of 95 pedagogical students at Can ThoUniversity, according to Dr Tran Luong, a lecturer. About 50 percent of theparticipants said they chose the field because of the tuition-free policy.Fifty-six percent of them said they would quit if they had to pay, while 22 percentwere indecisive.
Huynh Tran Hoai Duc,lecturer at the Tay Ninh College of Education, said that there are advantagesto keeping the policy, adding that 80 percent of the school’s students saidthat the policy is necessary.
“Waiving tuition fee willincrease competition between schools,” he said. “Students will also be gratefulfor it, and aware of their responsibilities when they graduate.”
Teacher training quality atuniversities and the current unemployment situation of pedagogical graduatesare the more serious issues that should be focused on, he added.
Ha Nguyen, a teacher at apublic elementary school in Dong Da district, said that the tuition-free policywas a “selling point” that helped pedagogical universities attract students,especially from disadvantaged sections of the society.
It shouldn’t be stopped,but adjusted so that universities can earn more to improve their trainingquality, she said.
Pedagogical universitiesshould only recruit enough students in accordance with society’s demand so thatthey will get jobs after graduation, she added.-VNA
VNA
