Students register for the national entrance exam.(Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – The draft law on adjustments andsupplements to a number of articles of the Law on Higher Education, which is underdiscussion at the on-going 5th session of the National Assembly, isexpected to help create an open and favourable legal framework for highereducation to develop and approach international standards.
According to Nguyen Thi Kim Phung, Director of theDepartment of Higher Education under the Ministry of Education and Training,the 2012 Law on Higher Education, the first one governing higher education, hasrevealed many shortcomings and limitations when facing newly emerging issues inthe field.
Therefore, the draft law proposed adjustments andsupplements to 31 out of the 73 articles of the 2012 law. The revisions focuson four pillar policies, which are enhancing universities’ self-governance andreforming the administration of universities’ operation, training managementand State management of higher education.
Phung noted that universities’ self-governance is the keyfactor for higher education to achieve international standards by making the mostof their inner resources and innovation.
She said the draft law added new concepts in line with internationaldefinitions and standards for higher education to provide a tool for Statemanagement, thus creating a uniform environment across the system and inaccordance with international trend.
Vice Rector of the Hanoi Law University Associate ProfessorVu Thi Lan Anh said the draft law has three good points, one of which is to addressmajor shortcomings and limitations of the current law, thus removing bigbottlenecks and problems in the development of higher education .
The draft law also institutionalises the Party’s guidelinesand policies on essential and comprehensive reform of higher education.
Furthermore, it addresses the contradictions and gaps betweenthe current Law on Higher Education and other legal documents issued after thelaw took effect.
Former Minister of Education and Training Professor NguyenMinh Hien was of the opinion that the draft law has covered all important issuesrelated to higher education.
Vice Rector of the National Economics University AssociateProfessor Hoang Van Cuong said the draft law would bring about essentialchanges to State management of higher education and university governance.State management would no longer interfere into the internal governance of eacheducational establishment, which would remove the main hindrance touniversities’ development.-VNA
