A study of career oriented education and training program in universities in sourthern vietnam

MEIHO UNIVERSITY
Graduate Institute of Business and Management

MASTERS THESIS

A Study of Career-oriented Education and
Training Program in Universities in
Sourthern Vietnam

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Masters of Business Administration

Advisor: Dr. Chien-Chung Lin
Co-advisor: Dr. Bui Van Danh
Graduate Student: Tran Dinh Duong

December, 2010




ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Firstly, I would like to thank to the Board of Directors of Ho Chi Minh City University
of Industry (HUI) and the Board of Directors of Meiho University (MU Taiwan)!
I also would like to sincere thanks to my Advisor, Prof., Dr. Lin, Chien Chung, and
other Professors and Staff at Graduate Institute of Business and Management, Meiho
University (MU Taiwan) for giving me a lot of instruction, advice and helps when I was
participating this EMBA program.
I also would like to thank Dr. Bui Van Danh at Ho Chi Minh City University of
Industry in Vietnam, Lecturer le Nam Hai at HUI’s Branch in Thai Binh province, and PhD’s
candidate Nguyen Quang Vinh at the National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan, for all

useful guidance and encourages when I was doing this study.
Many thanks to the Professors and Staff as well as Classmates at Postgraduate Studies
Department of Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry in Vietnam for valuable and
meaningful supports given for me during the time studying at HUI.

I


A Study of Career-oriented Education and Training
Program in Universities in Sourthern Vietnam
ABSTRACT
The training of occupation and technology in higher education in Vietnam, after
several times of reforms plus the birth of the Law on Education and Vocational Training of
2006, has gained some improvements. However, through the experience and the educational
system models of several countries, Vietnam needs to consider perfecting its training system
in a lively, unanimous and updated manner.
To achieve that goal, the immediate task is to define the building of a selective
training model fitted to the development of Vietnam’s education and training, luring students
into occupational and technological training to serve the national industrialization; the
branching must be done in such a manner as to offer students opportunities to have jobs in
many industries, at various levels, with different characteristics, suitable to personal ability
and securing a proportionate ratios in accordance with the social human resource; the
articulation in the training process must be secured; the recognition of defects in trained
products and the re-training must be immediate even in the training process itself; how to
combine the online training, a training method with updated contents, with the traditional
method; and the updating and the renovating of the training curriculum needs to have a
mechanism of inspecting and managing in a such manner that the contents of the training
curriculums may be fitted to social needs.
In order to carry out the tasks and the objectives mentioned above, it is to have a study
of reference materials to gain an overlook of the research, situation issues and the vocational

technical training model in Vietnam, and it is also to refer to the training models of several
countries with their developed education and training, so that it is to build a training model
which will be suitable for training careers and skills in higher education in Vietnam.
Furthermore, questionnaires were sent to 25 administrators of universities, 25 government
officials and 25 business managers.
The data analysis results in conclusion that a model of training careers and skills of
higher education in 3 phases with the selective input examinations being an unlimited

II


registration of candidates and the branching even in the process of higher education with a
combination of an articulation from lower up and a horizontal articulation; an immediate retraining in the higher education process after students have completed the first phase together
with a mechanism of adjusting the training curriculum right after the second phase in
accordance with the labor market, which is appropriate to the current conditions of Vietnam.
Keywords: Education and Training System, Education and Training Management,
Vocational and Techinical Program, Vietnam

III


A Study of Career-oriented Education and Training
Program in Universities in Sourthern Vietnam
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS....................................................................................................... I
ABSTRACT..............................................................................................................................II
Contents .................................................................................................................................. IV
Tables...................................................................................................................................... VI
Figures....................................................................................................................................VII
Chapter 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1

1.1 Background and Motivation ........................................................................................... 1
1.2 Research Purpose and Objectives ................................................................................... 2
1.3 Research Scope and Limitations..................................................................................... 3
1.4 Definition of Terms ........................................................................................................ 3
Chapter 2 Literature Review..................................................................................................... 5
2.1 Vocational and Technical Education and Training in Vietnam before 1975 ................. 5
2.1.1 The period of French colonialism. ........................................................................... 5
2.1.2 The period of 1954-1975 in Saigon. ........................................................................ 6
2.1.3 Section summary...................................................................................................... 7
2.2 Vocational and Technical Education and Training in Vietnam after 1975 .................... 7
2.2.1 About the curricula of education and training program........................................... 9
2.2.2 About learner, teaching method, examination and evaluation............................... 11
2.2.3 Traditional model of vocational training at universties since 1975....................... 12
2.2.4 Section summary.................................................................................................... 17
2.3 Vocational and Technical Education and Training in other Countries......................... 18
2.3.1 Vocational and technical education and training in Singapore.............................. 18
2.3.2 Vocational and technical education and training in Malaysia. .............................. 20
2.3.3 Vocational and technical education and training in France. .................................. 21
2.3.4 Vocational and technical education and training in Britain................................... 21
2.3.5 Section summary.................................................................................................... 22
2.4 The Career-oriented Education and Training Models .................................................. 24
IV


Chapter 3 Research Methodology........................................................................................... 27
3.1 Research Process........................................................................................................... 27
3.2 Research Model ............................................................................................................ 30
3.3 Population and Sampling .............................................................................................. 37
3.3.1 Education and training consultant experts. ............................................................ 38
3.3.2 State education management officers. ................................................................... 39

3.3.3 Education and training managers at universities. .................................................. 40
3.3.4 Enterprise managers............................................................................................... 40
3.4 Questionnaire Design.................................................................................................... 41
3.4.1 Validity. ................................................................................................................. 43
3.4.2 Reliability............................................................................................................... 43
3.5 Data Collection ............................................................................................................. 44
3.6 Data Analysis................................................................................................................ 44
Chapter 4 Data Analysis and Result ....................................................................................... 46
4.1 Descriptive Analysis ..................................................................................................... 46
4.2 One-sample t Test ......................................................................................................... 47
4.3 One-way ANOVA ........................................................................................................ 51
Chapter 5 Findings, Conclusions and Recommendations....................................................... 52
5.1 Findings ........................................................................................................................ 52
5.2 Conclusions................................................................................................................... 52
5.3 Recommendations......................................................................................................... 55
References............................................................................................................................... 56
Appendix 1 – English Questionnaire ...................................................................................... 59
Appendix 2 – Vietnamese Questionnaire ............................................................................... 63

V


Tables
Table 2-1 Differences between Universities in Colonialism’s Period and the Ones Today..... 6
Table 2-2 Differences between Universities in Period of 1954-1975 and the Ones Today ..... 7
Table 2-3 Model of School Year-based Education and Education and Training Program .... 12
Table 2-4 Model of the 2-Stage Education and Education and Training Program................. 12
Table 2-5 Model of the Credit-based Education and Education and Training Program ........ 13
Table 2-6 Difference in Characteristics of Higher Education in Malaysia and Vietnam ....... 20
Table 2-7 Difference in Characteristics of Higher Education in France and Vietnam........... 21

Table 2-8 Difference in Characteristics of Higher Education in Britain and Vietnam........... 22
Table 2-9 Bases for Developing the Suggested Model........................................................... 26
Table 3-1 Brief Description of Phases in the Research Model............................................... 32
Table 3-2 Education and Training Consultant Experts........................................................... 39
Table 3-3 Summary of References for Developing Questionnaire......................................... 42
Table 4-1 General Information of Research Subjects............................................................. 46
Table 4-2 One-sample t Test with the 1st Hypothesis ............................................................. 47
Table 4-3 One-sample t Test with the 2nd Hypothesis ............................................................ 48
Table 4-4 One-sample t Test with the 3rd Hypothesis............................................................. 48
Table 4-5 One-sample t Test with the 4th Hypothesis............................................................. 49
Table 4-6 One-sample t Test with the 5th Hypothesis............................................................. 50
Table 4-7 One-sample t Test with the 6th Hypothesis............................................................. 50
Table 4-8 Difference in Comment of Necessity of 6 Elements between the 3 Subjects ........ 51

VI


Figures
Figure 2-1 Model of Official Higher Education and Vocational Training in Vietnam Today14
Figure 2-2 Model of Singapore............................................................................................... 19
Figure 3-1 Research Process................................................................................................... 30
Figure 3-2 Proposed Model .................................................................................................... 31

VII


A Study of Career-oriented Education and
Training Program in Universities in
Southern Vietnam
Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 1 includes: (i) Background and Motivation, (ii) Research purpose and
objectives, (iii) Research scope and limitation; and (iv) Definition of terms.
1.1 Background and Motivation
In general, Vietnam’s human resource after thirty years of industrialization has been
remaining about 70% of the nationwide untrained labor force working in agriculture (Nguyen
Trung, 2007). In fact, the higher education training in Vietnam, in general, has not satisfied
the demand of trained manpower of enterprises in industrial parks, affecting the resolve of
developing industrial parks and attracting investments pointed out by the Government.
The current human resource is both excessive and lacking. According to the statistics
of the Education & Training Ministry, 63% of the graduate students are unemployed. The
37% of the employed graduate students cannot meet the work requirements, so companies
have to re-train their employees (Nguyen Xuan Han, 2007). Such degrees have not been
internationally acknowledged. According to the survey report of 200 top-ten Vietnamese
enterprises by UNDP - Hanoi published in September 2007, in interviews, Vietnamese
entrepreneurs said that they had to re-train most employees of all levels - vocational,
university, post university - that they have recruited into their companies, they did not believe
the higher education system and institutes in the country because the teaching quality was
low ; the program is very theoretical and backward ; research competence was poor ; books
and equipment are short, not integral, obsolete ; employees are weak at foreign languages ;
the organizational and managerial competence are bad (Nguyen Trung, 2007).
The training quality is not good; trained products are not appropriate to the demand of
human resource market entailing the dilemma that part of the trained labor force are
becoming the burden for families and society, which is a waste of thousands of billion VND

1


a year. In 2007, at least 7117 billion VND in which 4067 billion VND from the population
budget and 3050 billion VND from the Government budget (Nguyen Xuan Han, 2007).
1.2 Research Purpose and Objectives

This topic aims at develope a new model of vocational and technical education and
training that will be appropriate for the current Vietnamese social-economic circumstances.
The development of the new model was relied on the model existing in Vietnam. There
would be six new elements hypothesized in the new model. The research aims at the 6
following research objectives:
Objective 1:

To identify the appropriate enrollment type in vocational and technical
education and training;

Objective 2:

To identify the necessity of branching in university training process in
vocational and technical education and training;

Objective 3:

To identify the necessity of re-training in vocational and technical
education and training;

Objective 4:

To identify the necessity of articulation training in vocational and
technical education and training;

Objective 5:

To identify the necessity of e-learning in vocational and technical
education and training;

Objective 6:

To identify the necessity of adjusting curricula in vocational and
technical education and training.

With the six objectives above, the investigation data will be analyzed to answer the six
following questions:
Question 1:

Is the enrollment type of registration appropriate in vocational and
technical education and training?

Question 2:

Is the branching in university training process necessary in vocational
and technical education and training?

Question 3:

Is re-training necessary in vocational and technical education and
training?

Question 4:

Is articulation training necessary in vocational and technical education

2


and training?

Question 5:

Is e-learning necessary in vocational and technical education and
training?

Question 6:

Is the adjusting of curricula necessary in vocational and technical
education and training?

1.3 Research Scope and Limitations
Due to the limited time, it is possible to survey 25 business managers of 12 industrial
parks and 1 production complex in Binh Duong where the development of industrial parks is
rated first. 25 administrators of 5 province-level authorities concerning management and
planning of education and training programs and policies and 25 training administrators of 5
universities in Binh Duong Province and Ho Chi Minh City were sent questionnaires.
Furthermore, 5 experts were also interviewed to give comments on the suggested model of
vocational and technical education and training.
1.4 Definition of Terms
Vocational and Technical Training in Vietnam
Vocational and Technical training in Vietnam is the training of giving learners
information and professional technical skills to serve production and services in the
industrialization process (Nguyen Như Y,1999).
Education system of Vietnam
Education system of Vietnam is the totality of policies, educational-training models of
Vietnam carried out in the market economy with the command by the State in a socialist
orientation (Nguyễn Đình Hương, 2007).
Curricula of undergraduate training program
Curricula of training are knowledge that students have to learn and lecturers have to
teach. Those contents are promulgated by the Government authority concerned (Prime

Minister, 2003, 2006).

3


Career-oriented education and training program in Vietnam
Career-oriented education and training program is an education and training program
with the view of helping learners, after graduating secondary school, be able to meet the
practical requirements of the trained careers in the future (Nguyen Như Y, 1999).
The career-oriented education and training program in university
It aims at the demand of the market with flexible amendments so that students may
meet their professional jobs after graduating. Developing vocational education and training
program in universities is to build a higher university training model to help secure trained
products in university to be able to serve the demands of industrial parks (Nguyễn Đình
Hương, 2007).

4


Chapter 2 Literature Review
Chapter 2 includes: (1) Overview of vocational and technical education and training in
Vietnam before 1975; (2) About vocational and technical education and training in Vietnam
after 1975; (3) Vocational and technical education and training in other countries; and (4)
The career-oriented education and training models.
2.1 Vocational and Technical Education and Training in Vietnam before 1975
2.1.1 The period of French colonialism.
In the French colonialism, professional training consists of college and university.
College (École supérieur) is a professional school. Students want to study there have to pass
an entrance examination. Once a candidate is recruited, he will be granted a scholarship for
the whole curriculum by the government. After graduating, he has to work for the

government for a fixed time. If he refuses the job, he has to compensate the scholarship
granted back to the government. On the contrary, the government is obligated to give him an
appropriate job as his ability and skills already trained. Colleges are of strict discipline with
academic and decent education and education and training programs. Colleges are obligated
to train students into skilled professionals like engineers, doctors, professors. University
consists of faculties. Students who want to attend a faculty only issue a baccalaureate degree
without attending any entrance examination. Students can be admitted regardless of age and
number. The curriculum focuses on the common principle of training a student in a manner
so that he can grasp fundamental professional information. This training must abide by a
program approved by the faculty /school council of teachers. Table 2-1 illustrates the
comparison of differences between Vietnamese universities in the period of French
colonialism and Vietnamese universities today (Nguyen Quyet Thang, 2005).

5


Table 2-1 Differences between Universities in Colonialism’s Period and the Ones Today
Feature/phase

Selective form

Selective conditions

Under French rule Registration

Not limited number

Today

Appointed criteria

Selective entrance
examination

Education and training
program contents
Approved by council of
teachers
Stipulated by educationtraining ministry

(Source: Nguyen Quyet Thang, 2005)
Such intellects are not coming from a limited field or compulsory qualifications like
professional colleges. Attending university, students are not granted scholarship (except
brilliant students). The curriculum does not emphasize professional details. After graduating,
the government is not obligated to offer them job. The school is only obligated to train
students into free-lance experts full of professional knowledge like bachelor, master or doctor.
After graduating they will manage to seek jobs for themselves. However, if they have any
aspiration and they are recruited accordingly, the government will have to satisfy the
requirements that will be fulfilled by themselves (Nguyen Quyet Thang, 2005). Then,
colleges were abolished to become universities. After 1954, Indochina University was moved
to Saigon and such Saigon universities were reformed intensively and they had a new name
called Vietnam national university, then Saigon University.
2.1.2 The period of 1954-1975 in Saigon.
Under the old regime, there were two groups of universities with their separate training
views. They were to train students into skilled professional like engineers, doctors, or to train
students into scientists of theory other than of practice with degrees of bachelor, master or
doctor. Some universities held national doctor examinations by means of submitting their
essays abroad. Universities of that time built various programs under various channel like
instant channel and long-term channel with various training periods like training engineers
(4-5 years), training assistants (2 years). Especially in the instant channel, there were various

training sessions like 12-month training, 24-month training called the first level and the
second level for immediate job requirements. Several schools gained achievements in the

6


movement of “self-ruled university”. Some schools applied a free registration form without
any admissive condition and the others arranged a section-division entrance exam. And the
other conducted a credit training form and a branching training for each level like granting a
theoretical bachelor degree for those who completed the appointed curriculum and granting
free-lance bachelor degree for those who completed 4 certificates so that they could look for
a job (Nguyen Quyet Thang, 2005).
2.1.3 Section summary.
Differences between Vietnamese universities in the period of 1954-1975 and the ones
today
Table 2-2 Differences between Universities in Period of 1954-1975 and the Ones Today
Feature \ Phase
1954-1975
Today

Selective form

Branching
Various levels in higher
in university
education training
Yes
Yes

Registration & Entrance

examination
Entrance examination

No

No

(Source: Nguyễn Quyết Thắng, 2005)
2.2 Vocational and Technical Education and Training in Vietnam after 1975
Vocational training in Vietnam today consists of the short-term training and the longterm training. The short-term training is now very prosperous and vigorous nation-wide like
training informatics, office secretary, administrative affairs, etc. The training period is from
three-six months by means of registration form without any requirements concerning popular
education, that means, everyone will be able to take part in this study.
Nowadays, in Vietnam there are various higher education channels like the regular
channel, the on-job channel, the specialty consolidation channel and the distant training
channel. Such channels can issue equivalent higher educational decreases. The regular
channel is a concentrative training channel with tens entrance examination. The session lasts
four years or four years and a half according to each department; its curriculum is heavy
about politics (340 class hours); the training quality is not high but relatively stable; learners
are meanly graduates from senior high school; the manner of training is to insert information

7


with heavy examinations. The on -job channel is a study and work channel mainly reserve for
those who are working at offices and companies. This channel serves the proper demand of
upholding levels to serve requirements of learners’ jobs. This channel brings 90% the
revenues to universities. This channel is popular in developed countries. The distant training
channel is a non-concentrative training channel and lectures are broadcast on television; after
registering, students have to pick up lectures. Before the tests, students gather at universities

to review lessons in a short time and then take part in examinations there. However, because
the training mode is not appropriate, the training curriculum is heavy at politics, the training
period is a shorten without applying the mode and training process of enhancing self-study
and self- research but with applying a form of inserting information due to little broadcasting;
the teaching method is back ward; the learning environment and infrastructure serving
learning is bad; lecturers are of disqualifications, resulting in bad training quality. Besides,
testing and assessing with heavy examinations with mainly memory testing and quizzing.
This will inevitably result in negativity in examination.
Generally speaking, there is confusion between training and propagation with a manner
of compulsory insertion without respecting freedom in discussion and exchanges without any
mechanism of encouraging the spirit of self-research and self exploitation from learners,
which will erode talent, intelligence of learners and teachers. There has not been any teaching
method to strengthen learners’ eagerness and contributions of learners in order to form
democracy between teachers and learners so that learners may form a habit of defending their
ideas before the public confidently and calmly. There has not been enough attention to the
core that man must be trained both ability fitted to his job requirements and a scientific
method, creativity, counter-argument by means of facilitating learners to get genuine
knowledge with free choice and multi -dimensioned information. There is now a shortage of
the combination between study and practice and between and practice (Vo Nguyen Giap,
2007).
Higher education training after Vietnam became the 150th member of the WTO in the
connection of globalization (a decisive turning in the renovation work in which is existing
educational - training renovation) is very annoying since Vietnam started as a weak partners.
There was not 50% market fragment; there was not anything to export in the training due to
backward training. The remaining fragment of 50% was local market. Vietnamese population

8


seems not to be confident in Vietnamese educational (Nguyen Dang Hung, 2007). The

demand of higher education in Vietnam is very high. The current higher educational training
system does not satisfy that demand. According to an investigation conducted by the Health
Ministry, the statistics administration, the WHO and UNICEF, 90 percent of Vietnamese
students want to study university. In fact, only 10% gain this will. The development in
training among regions and areas are not even 14 percent of urban youth graduate university
while 1.5% rural youth graduate university (Mark, 2007)
Most establishments do not combine research with teaching. Those who do research
successfully fail to communicate with learners their achievements in their research work will
lead to waste. On the contrary, those who teach do not spend any time researching will entail
lower lessen quality. The current training philosophy in Vietnam tends to shape the persons
who can memorize many things as their fortune in order to attend numerous examinations
throughout their learning life full of hardships and sufferings, but they cannot have happiness
of initiators. The educational managerial habit is backward, excessive and heavy with an
‘ask-give’ mechanism; the educational mechanism is old-aged, awkward with large
managerial personnel with near-sighted and immoral view. In training, it is not to esteem
internationalization and not to pay attention to attracting the teaching manpower from abroad
as well as Vietnamese nationals teaching in other countries.
2.2.1 About the curricula of education and training program.
The current vocational teaching curriculum in Vietnam is backward, not updated and
does not base on the demand of labor market. Generally, in developed countries, the teaching
courses are changed every three years whereas Vietnamese courses did not change for thirty
years. The improved curriculum cannot clearly define such forms as school year, stage 1,
stage 2 and credit training forms, etc. Schools do not really have any self-determination in
their education and training programs. The right to self-determination according to the
Education & Training Ministry is not clear, concrete and open-minded, not facilitating
universities to be flexible in building vocational programs for students (Tran Thi Ha, 2009).
According to the instructions by the Education & Training Ministry concerning using
the program framework to build education and training programs, higher educational
program framework consists of Government regulations on the structure, the quantity and

9


minimum information block for each training channel and training level. This is the basis for
universities and institutes to build specific education and training programs suitable for
specific objectives and particular conditions and also a basis to help the Educational &
Training Ministry to help the training quality of higher educational establishments
throughout the country. This program framework is used to build programs for 5-year or 4.5year channel (for the 4.5-year channel, the contents and compulsory syllabi are unchanged).
The remaining syllabi (12 syllabi for general education and 69 syllabi for professional
education) are supplemented by schools to build a complete education and training program
for each specialty and occupation for their school. Any compulsory knowledge which needs
to be added time or to be supplemented will be put into such a semester without separating
the compulsory knowledge and the additional knowledge (Ministry of Education and
Training, 2007).
The whole training period of the three training levels after graduating high school
education concludes 09 years, a long time; common subjects and fundamental subjects
coincide with each other, resulting in wasting training time; professional subjects are
prescribed stiffly and not lively; the building of vocational education and training program
does not result in inheritance, articulation and concentration in the program of the three
levels. For example, the names of such common subjects as philosophy, politics, law
teaching, and general law in the three levels are different with different numbers of periods
with their contents being coincided, resulting in laziness, confrontation, and wasting time and
money of society. The contents of Vietnamese education and training programs are
unreasonable in time, quantity and knowledge with cumbersome theory, coincidence and low
modernity (Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007). The period for the professional training and practice
occupies not much in the total training period.
For vocational intermediate program, common subjects (applied to training channels
stipulated by Education & Training Ministry) total up 435 periods; fundamental subjects
account for 510 periods, professional and practical subjects only account for 675 periods. For
vocational college program, the general educational knowledge occupies 44 syllabus units;

fundamental knowledge accounts for 30 syllabus units; the professional knowledge accounts
for 9 syllabus units and the practice accounts for only 11 syllabus units. For university
program, general educational knowledge occupies 80 syllabus units; fundamental knowledge

10


accounts for 59 syllabus units ; the professional knowledge accounts for 24 syllabus units and
the practice accounts for only 13 syllabus units and thesis accounts for only 15 syllabus units.
It is not to mention the mid-practice period. The training period is very long, but in each
course, there is not any policy for updating latest knowledge and skills as required by the
labor market.
2.2.2 About learner, teaching method, examination and evaluation.
There are two main kinds of learners: (1) about the on-job learner: firstly, the learner is
trained regularly from lower level with a good learning method with good thinking ability,
with good learning motive awareness and with experience of work background, making
learners positively affect the training quality; secondly, the learner is not regularly trained
and most of them do not have a good learning method with low thinking ability, with low
learning motive awareness because their learning is used to satisfy the standardization of
office titles, thus making learners negatively affect the training quality; (2) about the
concentrative-learner: at present, in fact, a relatively popular phenomenon is that public
authorities have not built the process of nominating, appointing titles based on professional
competence and occupational morality but mainly based on the political conditions of a
functionary to deploy and to appoint. This negatively affects learners’ psychology.
The elements like the teaching method, the investigation and the evaluation are hot
issues. At present, our government is determined to renovate the teaching method. Besides
the traditional explanation method, schools are encouraging the seminar method, the practice
method and other supportive method like the team discussion method, the storming method,
the fish-ocean method, the role-playing method in order to animate the teaching process, in
order to individualize the teaching process and in order to industrialize the university

teaching process. Together with the methods above is the addition of other investigation and
evaluation forms besides the traditional explanation form; it is the objective test. However,
the problem here is the conflict between the objectives, the teaching method and the
investigation-evaluation contents. The resolve of innovation, the teaching method aims at
developing students’ creativity, but the investigation-evaluation contents aim at testing
memory (this is the same as the method of inserting knowledge of the former days).
Vietnamese education needs vigorous reforms in testing and assessing. It is to get rid of the

11


university-college entrance examinations which are tense and costly with low efficiency as
presently (Seminar, 2007).
2.2.3 Traditional model of vocational training at universties since 1975.
Table 2-3 Model of School Year-based Education and Education and Training Program
Year

Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Basic
Basic &
Specialty
Contents
subjects
Foundation
Time
11 months
11 months
11 months

Qualifications/ None
None
None
certificates
(Source: Ho Chi Minh City University,1979).

Year 4
Specialty
11 months
None

Graduation
Practice &
Essay writing
06 months
University

This model is to arrange the input entrance examination which is very heavy, strict and
involved in negativity in examination ranging the entrance examination to in-the-year tests.
The program is divided into annual units. There is not any branching in education, not any
articulation with intermediate, college levels. There is not any mechanism of assessing the
training quality as required by the market in the training process, entailing the dissimilarity
between the training quality of universities and markets. There is not any mechanism of
amending the training contents and there is not any description of the improvements of the
curriculum contents periodically.
Table 2-4 Model of the 2-Stage Education and Education and Training Program
Phase
Contents

Phase I

General university

Phase II
Specialty

Time
2 years
2 years
Qualifications/
General university
None
certificates
certificate
(Source: Decree No. 16/CP dated Jan 27, 1995 by Government)

Graduation practice
Practice & Essay
writing
06 months
University

This model is also to arrange the input entrance examination which is heavy, strict and
involved in negativity in examination ranging the entrance examination to in-the-year tests,
especially in the transitory exam from phase 1 to phase 2 in order to branch in training.

12


Students who pass the examination will be granted general education certificate and will be
accepted to study phase 2 whereas students who do not pass the transitory exam will teach

themselves and will attend the next year’s examination. The training program is divided into
phases as units including the general training phase with fundamental knowledge and phase 2
with professional knowledge. The filtering is roughly involved in the transitory exam without
the branching in training and without re-training, without any articulation with intermediate
and college levels entailing the dilemma that students who have failed in the transitory exam
will become unemployed because they do not any further schooling, they cannot come back
home, thus losing optimism, boredom and being able to join social evils.
The transitory examination is not how to assess the training quality as required by
labor market, so it is theoretically heavy; the training contents are still based on the Soviet
model, which is obsolete without any mechanism of amending and improving the training
contents periodically.
Table 2-5 Model of the Credit-based Education and Education and Training Program
Units
Semester
Credit
Syllabus unit
Contents
Students register subjects as stipulated
Time
Students can shorten the program given
Qualifications/
To grant certificate for each subject, finish the program and pass
certificates
graduation will be granted the university degree
(Source: Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007)
The credit-based training model is a new training model which identifies the
groundwork of vocational training to be based on competence (competence based vocational
training). This training is strictly involved in module-size the training process (the concept
“module” in training firstly appeared in Harvard University in the USA in 1869
recommended by its Rector Eliot with the purpose that students will be given the choice to

study syllabus appropriate to them with securing quantity and academic level. In this
principle, syllabi can be transferred each other. Each level in the vocational training system
consists of several transferable syllabi and then, in order to achieve a certain level, it is not
necessary to stipulate previously a session or a training course annually. Students may
shorten the appointed duration according to their competence. This model will enable
flexibility in the training program, thus certifying the varied demand of learners. However, at
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present due to not yet studying thoroughly, the application is not yet successful (Nguyen
Dinh Huong, 2007). The vocational education and training program in Vietnam can be
depicted as the model presented in Figure 2-1:

Trainin
g
divisio
n
Examination

Basic
knowledge

Professional
knowledge

Higher
education
graduation

Re-training

Figure 2-1 Model of Official Higher Education and Vocational Training in Vietnam Today
(Source: Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007)
According to this model, branching occurs when finishing the stage of completing
junior and senior high school by means of primary vocational, intermediate, college and
university. Such a branching is not efficient and not practical with the serious imbalance
between “teacher” and “worker” because the traditional concept saying that a technical skills
certificate is not as valuable as a university degree deeply impresses Vietnamese people (i.e.,
the ratios of higher educational students, intermediate students compared with high school
students of school years. For example, in 2006 Vietnam had 3,029,021 high school students,
500,416 intermediate students, 1,087,813 university students (education and training ministry,
2005-2006) these ratios shows a troublesome situation of Vietnamese man power.
Comparing with other countries, we can see that in China, after junior high school, nearly
60% students enter vocational school, 40% enter high school and higher education ; in
Taiwan, 66% enter vocational school 34% enter junior high school and higher education ;in
Switzerland, 82% enter vocational, 18% enter higher education (Nguyen Xuan Han, 2007).
The situation shows that the branching to orient vocational direction for students in an
appropriate ratio is a very urgent problem.
Branching is always organically involved with articulation. Most countries regard
vocational training as a combination with social occupations at different levels Learners after
completing the career training, will be able to directly join the labor market as the career
studied. They can study more about their career or they can transfer a new career as required
by life (Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007). In Vietnam today, the articulation problem is being put

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out and needs to be quickly settled. Most educational establishments are lacking articulation
with each other. The model does not pay attention to the articulation to save time and money
in training with securing the training quality.

Building and amending the training contents of this model is not flexible. The most
essential problem in educational -training reforms is to renovate the educational training
contents (Phan Dinh Dieu, 2006). The training contents of Vietnam today is unreasonable in
time, quantity and knowledge with heavy theory, coincidence, low modernity (Nguyen Dinh
Huong, 2007) ; training careers and skills of today is not animate, flexible, lively and ready
to meet employers ‘requirements (Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007). In fact, training careers and
skills in higher education in Vietnam of today does not follow the motto of “study combined
with practice” and does not respond to practical production. Therefore, the knowledge and
skills of students do not meet the requirements of enterprises in industrial park, and most
students who have graduated are low in quality, cannot work immediately, need to be
retrained, which costs very much and little efficiently (Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007).The
training contents does not have any mechanism to adjust lively, updated and timely changing
in accordance with the requirement of employers
According to this model, universities by means of the input entrance examination with
volume strictly managed by the education-training ministry in order to adjust the ratio of
training teachers and workers through stiff administrative measures, not true rules of labor
market. This is good at the fact of mentioning the impact on learners to upgrade the training
quality by carefully recruiting input students to secure input students and output students not
fluctuated. Students and schools need to facilitate students to complete the university
curriculum, including the given targets for the sake of our society, not for the sake of the
quality of trained product or learning results. The school has to facilitate students to get a
degree to look for a job so that such a student will not become a social burden. The right to
recruit learners (concerning quantity, time, manner is also the self- determination right of
Vietnamese universities, which are not guaranteed radically and fully (Le Minh Tien, 2006).
The change in entrance university examination form is of negativity, heaviness, causing
expenses for society, decreasing the training quality as presently and the research into higher
education registration form with a limited number of students of higher education under
French rule in Vietnam is an issue to be interested in.

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