Implementing credit training is a major policy of VNU to improve the quality of education and move towards international integration. As one of the pioneers in this policy, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (VNU) has had 4 years of implementing credit training and achieved certain initial successes. Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Kim Son - Vice Rector - shared experiences, lessons and identified new challenges.
- Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Kim Son, could you please tell us the main results after 4 years of applying the credit training method at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities?- The policy of converting from year-based training to credit-based training at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities has been in place since 2003 and officially applied credit-based training since the 2007-2008 school year. In the context of not having much knowledge and experience about this new type of training, the School has made great efforts and determination. The initial results can be considered in the following aspects: First and foremost, the awareness of staff and lecturers about the requirements of credit-based training has been raised. After the first school year, skepticism about returning to year-based training appeared. In the following school year, with the promotion of practical activities, awareness among staff and students has changed in a positive direction. Most of the comments focused on pointing out what needs to be done next and what needs to be overcome to improve credit-based training. Second, the School has successfully implemented the plan to convert university training to credits according to the roadmap, although the workload of organizing and implementing has been very heavy in the past 4 years. Third, the School has made a fundamental change in building training programs, course outlines, course study guides, compiling textbooks and testing and evaluation. Fourth, the conditions for improving students' adaptability to credit training and learning quality have been ensured. Through learning results and quality assessment activities, it can be seen that teaching quality has gradually increased year by year.
We need to modernize the training program soon. After two years of operating the credit-based training program, it is clear that the number of credits and subjects is too much, which comes from the initial direction when converting the training program: horizontal transfer. Moreover, current training programs not only have little elective time but more importantly, the closure between training programs. When implementing the construction of dual-degree training programs, the volume of dual-degree training programs is mostly at 85 to 90 credits, meaning a difference of up to 65% of the total time. This limits the opportunity to open "year-round" courses for students. It is necessary to consider setting a certain percentage of elective courses according to the term "learning on demand", that is, students can choose from the "elective subject basket" of the group of majors or higher, of the school. Doing this not only helps to filter existing subjects but also increases the effectiveness of the "training program capital" which are the subjects that many students choose.MSc. Dinh Viet Hai - Deputy Head of Training Department
- So what is the most fundamental difficulty in converting training methods, sir?- In my opinion, the biggest difficulty is the fear of change, the inertia of old habits, that is, the ideological problem. The second difficulty is the lack of some important conditions in terms of facilities and human resources for widespread implementation.
- It is known that the 2011-2015 period was determined by the School to bring credit training into depth. Could you please elaborate on the goals of this period?We call the past 4 years the first phase of the transformation process. The first phase of transformation is mainly implemented in terms of form, technology, management cycle and training thinking, initially in teaching methods and assessment. From 2011 to 2015 will be the phase of in-depth transformation. The implementation of in-depth training transformation takes place in a great opportunity with many favorable factors. The past four years of operating under the credit system have created momentum for the operation of the entire transformation process. On the other hand, credit-based training is currently an inevitable trend and is consistent with the trend of internationalization and innovation in training management. In-depth credit implementation takes place mainly in teaching methods, assessment and assessment, especially assessment and guidance for self-study and self-research. This is the key step to truly improve the quality of training based on the advantages of credit-based training: that is, promoting the initiative of learners and teachers.
- So what challenges does the School identify and focus on solutions to overcome them?- There are several major challenges: One is the human challenge, that is, the staff problem. The self-awareness, the proficiency in training technology, the professionalism of lecturers and the strict implementation of training requirements of lecturers are important steps in credit training. Moreover, in phase 2, we plan to organize the registration to select teachers and arrange subjects every year depending on the requirements, nature and role of the subject so that lecturers have the conditions to research. However, in the situation where the requirements for lecturers are increasingly high, the work is increasingly heavy but the income does not increase or increases insignificantly, the ideological problem is inevitable. From the above problem, we consider the staff problem as a breakthrough, the key to deciding not only the training problem but also other activities of the School. The second challenge is facilities and technology. The slogan: students can study anywhere, can find documents conveniently anywhere is probably still a very distant story. The third challenge is that the training management and student management systems need to be modernized and standardized. The current management system can temporarily maintain its operation, but to ensure stability, sustainability and continuous development to serve the requirements of phase 2, it needs to be standardized. An operating system according to IS 9000.2001 standards is probably an indispensable requirement. We are also facing a contradiction between concentration and decentralization: centralizing management of departments or decentralizing management of a part of the training field to faculties and training units. The fourth challenge is the solution to improve the overall training quality and the solution for groups. It is necessary to reaffirm that the conversion to credit training is a comprehensive and comprehensive solution to internationalize and modernize training. The policy of developing international-class training and high-quality training is a major and necessary policy, but it is posing a contradiction, which is the contradiction between the overall solution and group priority. Investing in high-quality classes has many contradictions with implementing it on a large scale. Therefore, a task for the School is: to have a solution for international-class training suitable for the School and high-quality training in a credit training environment.
Of the three factors that need to be focused on in implementing credit training, which are teachers, students and organizational mechanisms, the most important factor that needs to be focused on changing is teachers. This is the most important variable in credit training. Changing teachers will make students who are quite passive change as well. Changing teachers will also impact the mechanism to change because the mechanism is created by people. In short, credits need to start from teachers and that is the main driving force for the shift to credit-based training. Changing the organizational mechanism and students is good, but it will not be a real, fundamental and long-term change if teachers do not change.Associate Professor, Dr. Hoang Khac Nam - Faculty of International Studies
- In the previous stage, students commented that there were not many opportunities to choose teachers and subjects. Will this be overcome in the next stage?- In the recent transition period of training methods, students have been able to choose subjects, but mainly to choose subjects for their study plan, and the number of elective subjects in the training program that are deployed for students to choose from is still not much. This requires time and preparation in many aspects. As for the issue of choosing teachers, this is not a simple matter. To let students choose teachers, first of all, there must be many people participating in teaching the subjects, the number of teaching staff, that is, the training human resources must be abundant. This is not practical, because most specialized subjects have only one person in charge of teaching. On the other hand, psychological problems and traditional habits are not favorable for this type of work. In the next few years, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities will allow students to choose teachers for subjects in the general education knowledge block first. In specialized subjects, whether students can choose their teachers or not will depend on the development of the staff.
- Some people think that changing the old curriculum to the new credit-based training program is simply a horizontal transfer, not really meeting the requirements of the credits?- Of course, in the conversion process, the conversion of training programs is extremely crucial. The training programs that have been converted at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities are not mechanical conversions. Many subjects have been integrated, the distribution of knowledge blocks has been innovated, the number of elective subjects has been increased, the prerequisites and sequences of the program have also been improved. To operate the converted training program, the system of subject outlines and subject guidance documents has been compiled to serve the implementation of new teaching methods suitable for the credit system. However, the current training programs still have some shortcomings, such as the number of subjects is still too large, the number of 2-credit subjects accounts for too large a proportion, making the training program fragmented, difficult to manage and implement the training program, the compatibility between training programs in the Social Sciences and Humanities block is still low.
As one of the students who graduated 1 year ahead of schedule at the Faculty of Philosophy, our experience is to overcome difficulties with the power of solidarity such as group study, exchange of learning materials and sharing knowledge about credit training methods... We help each other overcome difficulties and encourage each other when we are tired and discouraged. Because to achieve the goal of learning quickly and having good learning results is a difficult thing because there is no experience or precedent from predecessors.Duong Thi Oanh Thanh - former student of QH-2007-X course, Faculty of Philosophy
- What recommendations does the school have for VNU to support the implementation of credit training at the school as well as promote credit training on a scale across VNU?- Firstly, VNU needs to have breakthrough and revolutionary solutions regarding the conditions for credit training such as: libraries, learning materials, information technology and other training facilities. Secondly, it is necessary to further increase the autonomy of lecturers, and at the same time require more from lecturers, but it is necessary to have a suitable, step-by-step roadmap and be compatible with the improvement of facilities, learning materials and the increased professionalism and pedagogy of teaching and management staff. Thirdly, VNU needs to research and have an appropriate project to convert the high-quality training model, international standard training to suit the credit-based training environment. Fourthly, it is necessary to research and innovate the operating model of the Youth Union and Student Association to suit credit training, avoiding rigidity and passivity like the period of annual training. Fifth, there should be strict regulations for quality control combined with strict rewards and punishments, even elimination, to gradually improve training quality. Finally, VNU needs to have a suitable solution to balance the enhancement of connectivity between units with increasing the autonomy of training units.
Thank you, Professor!
