Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam has had a remarkably highnumber of post-graduates in the recent years. However, scientific researchprojects, which are considered the soul of universities in their quest toproduce new knowledge for the world, have remained modest in both quality andquantity.

According to education experts, this is due to shortcomingsin post-graduate education, which fails to boost scientific research atuniversities.

Professor Ta Thanh Van, lecturer at Hanoi Medical Universitytold Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper that post-graduate education in the countrydoes not really boost scientific research and that universities did not playthe key role of enhancing science and technology capacity in the country.

As a result, the quality of PhD-holders was low compared toother regional countries. The number of Vietnamese scientists honoured in theworld’s educational system or in international research projects was still verymodest, he said.

PhD Nguyen Xuan Han from the Hanoi National University saidthat in the 1970s, the number of PhD holders was only roughly 1,000, and thisgeneration had made contributions to the construction and development of thecountry.

The number of PhD holders is now 23 times higher, butconcrete achievements, proven by valuable and practical scientific researchworks, are limited. He said that the low quality of post-graduates was amongthe key reasons.

PhD Le Van Ut, head of the Ton Duc Thang University’s Scienceand Technology Management and Development Office, agreed, saying that candidatesfor professorships or associate professorships were not required to havescientific articles published on ISI/Scopus journals – the standard that theworld has applied to evaluate the quality of research produced by individualscientists, scientific organisations and nations.

The low requirements produce poorly qualified scientists, hesaid.

Reports from the Ministry of Education and Training showedthat scientific research works from universities and institutes between2011-2016 were modest.

The group of agro-forestry-fishery universities had nearly3,350 scientific articles published at international and national conferencesduring the period, according to an article published on the Vietnam Governmentportal chinhphu.vn last November. The figure is equivalent to an average of0.74 article per scientist during the five-year period.

The group of pedagogical universities had 2,000 PhD holders,but only had 804 articles published on ISI/Scopus journals.

Currently, there were about 9,000 professors and associateprofessors, 24,000 PhDs and 100,000 MAs in the country. However, during the2011-16 period, they had only 5,738 international scientific articles published.

PhD Nguyen Ngoc Minh, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Academy ofScience and Technology, said that it was necessary to have a testing system toevaluate the education and training quality of universities.

To improve the education quality and scientific research ofpost-graduates, experts said that it was necessary to set up a centre offorecasting human resources, which would take surveys and forecast changes onhuman resources in different fields and different regions.

Based on the survey, the State would set up a policy to trainhuman resources properly.

The role of the professor councils, who would vote forcandidates registered for Doctorate or Professor, should be improved. Councilmembers should be voted on instead of assigned, as they are now, to ensure thetransparency and fairness of the process. -VNA