Closing ceremony of the 50th AUN-QA external assessment session

Attending the closing session were Deputy Executive Director of the ASEAN University Network (AUN) Choltis Dhirathiti, representative of the AUN Secretariat Ing-orn Jeerararuensak and Accreditors Wan Ahmad Kamil Mahmood (team leader) and colleague Nakorn Srisukhumbowornchai.

On the side of VNU, there were Vice President Nguyen Kim Son, leaders of functional departments, schools, faculties, and units under VNU, along with the Board of Directors, staff, lecturers, and representatives of the Faculty of Oriental Studies of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities.

At the closing session, the representative of the External Assessment Team mentioned the strengths, potentials and areas that need to be improved according to the AUN-QA standards of the Bachelor of Oriental Studies training program.

Evaluating the program, the representative of the Evaluation Team said that, basically, the program is built to promote learning activities, learning methods and create lifelong learning habits for students; the program has a balance between specialized content, general knowledge, and necessary skills with reasonable content allocation; the staff and lecturers are enthusiastic, have good capacity, and are fluent in foreign languages; staff and lecturers are given conditions to study, improve skills, enhance capacity and expertise as well as promote their creativity; the input quality of students is guaranteed through the national university entrance exam; policies and conditions to support students are good; the rate of students having jobs after graduation is high.

To further improve the quality of the training program, AUN assessment experts recommend: paying more attention to supporting and advising new students, helping them get acquainted with and overcome difficulties in the new learning environment; organizing more collective activities for students to have the opportunity to use and improve soft skills; improving English communication skills for students through exchange activities and organizing clubs; attracting capital sources to support staff and lecturers in scientific research; paying more attention to establishing cooperative relationships with international partners; investing more in equipment for learning and research; enhancing the role of alumni, serving the development of the Faculty and the University.

Speaking at the closing session, Mr. Choltis Dhirathiti - Deputy Executive Director of AUN believed that the assessment would bring great benefits in the process of improving the quality of education and research of the Faculty and the University.

VNU Vice President Nguyen Kim Son highly appreciated the enthusiastic, serious and systematic working spirit of AUN external assessment experts. VNU Vice President emphasized that the comments and assessments on the strengths and contents that need to be improved of the program will motivate and encourage faculty staff and lecturers to continue to improve the quality of teaching and enhance the quality of the program even better. At the same time, the Vice President believes that the assessments of AUN experts are not only useful for the assessed program but also the destination of many other training programs in the process of quality improvement.

Vice President of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities Nguyen Van Kim affirmed that he will promote strengths and improve weaknesses to increasingly improve the quality of training programs, contributing to the development of the faculty and the school in line with the integration trend.