At a recent seminar on modernizing Vietnam’s higher education, Tinh said decentralization in the organizational structure and staffing at financially autonomous public education institutions still has many flaws.

Though the Party’s guidelines and the law both affirm that university autonomy is a legal right accompanied by accountability, in reality, institutions are still constrained by many general regulations, making it difficult to perform their duties in various fields.

For instance, according to current rules, a university, whether it enrolls 40,000 or 4,000 students, can have a maximum of only three vice presidents. At the same time, it can only establish offices or departments when there are at least two areas of work and a minimum of seven staff members.

VNUHCMC’s member universities have large training scales and need more vice rectors to share workload and improve management efficiency and operations, but are restricted by this rule.

Tinh proposed piloting an autonomy mechanism at several key universities on organizational structure and human resources, allowing these institutions to decide the number of vice presidents and the configuration of offices and departments based on their scale, operational characteristics, and practical needs.

During the pilot phase, universities could flexibly establish specialized offices with appropriate staffing levels, while setting up monitoring and evaluation mechanisms for operational effectiveness and resource use to ensure transparency and accountability.

The results of the pilot program will be reviewed and used as a foundation to develop a comprehensive university governance mechanism suited to each institution’s scale, function, and development strategy.

Should universities decide their own doctoral training programs?

According to Tinh, Article 24 of the Draft Law on Higher Education stipulates that the Minister of Education and Training has the authority to approve programs in teacher education, health, law, and doctoral-level training. This regulation reflects the state’s key management role in training specialized and high-level academic fields.

However, many major universities have already autonomously organized and implemented both undergraduate and postgraduate programs effectively, ensuring quality, meeting practical needs, and integrating internationally.

Notably, doctoral training programs at Vietnam National University Hanoi and Vietnam National University HCMC have been effectively implemented, attracting many doctoral candidates, conducting significant research projects, and publishing scientific articles on prestigious domestic and international journals.

Under the current regulations, at least one of the two doctoral advisors has to work at the training institution. As a result, even top professors or internationally recognized scientists cannot independently advise if they are don’t work for the institution.

Tinh suggested granting key universities the right to approve and implement programs in specialized fields and doctoral training. 

This mechanism would help reduce the workload of the Ministry of Education and Training, which currently has to approve programs for 103 teacher-training institutions, 70 health institutions, and 67 law institutions. It would also shorten processing times and strengthen the role and mission of major universities with adequate human, financial, and evaluation capacities.

At the same time, a special mechanism should be added to allow internationally recognized foreign scholars to independently advise doctoral candidates without being required to co-advise through a local academic.

This mechanism could be designed flexibly by allowing training institutions to sign contracts with the scholars for specific projects or phases; setting minimum publication standards for supervisors; and granting autonomy to institutions to assess competence, ensure supervision quality, and maintain doctoral outcome standards.

Speaking at the seminar on Vietnam’s higher education, Nguyen Trong Nghia, Head of the Central Propaganda and Mass Mobilization Commission, said Resolution 71 clearly defines viewpoints, goals, tasks, and breakthrough solutions for education and training development.

Nghia emphasized perfecting institutions, special mechanisms, policies, and a strategic framework for higher education development, with higher education spending of at least 3 percent of total state budget expenditures.

He also mentioned promoting research university models, next-generation innovation and technology, and sustainable universities; implementing state-university-enterprise cooperation; and accelerating decentralization and delegation tied to resource allocation and full autonomy for higher education institutions.

“University governance must be streamlined, unified, and efficient, clearly defining the Party committee’s comprehensive leadership role and operational mechanisms when the Party secretary concurrently serves as the institution head, and no school councils at public institutions,” Nghia said.

Le Huyen