Training quality assessment activities: “Overcoming cognitive barriers”

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Some outstanding results of the School's quality assessment activities

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Thi Minh Hoa, Vice Principal of the School, in charge of finance, administration, facilities management and quality assurance

1. The biggest difficulty is the problem of perception.

- Dear Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Thi Minh Hoa, what objective and subjective factors have promoted the school's training quality assessment activities since its inception?

The School's development of a quality assessment program in its overall development strategy comes from two sides: One is from the external context, from the general international and domestic trends; the other is from the School's own requirements. In the world, in developed countries, quality training programs and universities must be assessed and recognized on prestigious rankings. In Vietnam, the Ministry of Education and Training has now also seen the role and is increasingly enhancing the importance of assessment work in improving the training quality of schools.

In fact, when universities in Vietnam first started implementing quality assessment activities, many people did not yet understand the deepest purposes of quality assessment.to ensure and improve the quality of training in a training institution.That is the most important thing. The key to development is the increasingly improved quality. The views of hot, fast development, "eating and living for the moment" cannot be suitable in this era. What is not of quality, not maintained and improved in quality will be eliminated by society. The University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU is a training and scientific research center with a rich tradition. Our prestige, reputation, traditions and achievements left by previous generations, we must preserve and promote by constantly improving the quality of the University's activities.

- What is the biggest difficulty in implementing training quality assessment activities?

Awareness – that is the first important thing and also the biggest difficulty. From the school leaders, functional departments, specialized faculties, to each staff member, employee, student… if they do not have correct and complete awareness and see the importance of accreditation, they will not be able to implement this activity effectively. At first, many questions and concerns were raised such as: What is the purpose of accreditation? Why do we need to do accreditation when things are so good? Accreditation is just a formality, following the trend…

If we look at it directly, accreditation is a review and assessment of where we are? What are our strengths? What are the shortcomings? What plans and solutions are needed to overcome them? Without accreditation, we will not be able to ensure the standards to be recognized in the rankings of quality universities in the region and the world.

Each training program registered for accreditation will be carefully reviewed by the School and the Faculty. Any criteria that are missing, need adjustment, need investment, etc. will be given attention. Accreditation of training facilities (school level) needs even more attention. We need to benchmark where we are and what we need to do to improve.

Returning to the issue of perception, if we only consider inspection as a formality, we will only do it for the sake of it, doing it perfunctorily, and we will actually make ourselves fall behind.

- How has training quality assessment affected the school's operations?

The process of accreditation and quality assurance is the movement of the total resources of the School. Accrediting a training program, not only the faculty implementing the program must participate, but also the whole system: from the School leadership, functional departments, coordinating units; from training, scientific research, student affairs to finance, facilities...

The training program was reviewed, not to check “what to teach?”, but more importantly “how to teach?”. Teaching methods were then innovated. Students from many faculties had very good results in learning foreign languages, but when the evaluation team interviewed them in foreign languages, they could not communicate. This is an example of the old-fashioned way of teaching foreign languages ​​in Vietnam, focusing only on grammar, reading comprehension and writing.

Archiving has always been a limitation, from the school level to the faculty level. When preparing the inspection dossier, supporting documents are very important. This has strongly affected the archiving activities. Therefore, all archiving activities of the School and faculties cannot help but adjust to be more rigorous and scientific.

In particular, when organizing interviews with subjects: Students, alumni, employers..., the School receives objective assessments and practical requirements from society. If we do not listen to society and respond to its development needs, we cannot integrate into that common development. From a school with a rich tradition in basic sciences, we develop more applied sciences. Even in the field of scientific research, although the School has had many achievements, it still needs to continue to promote, promote key topics, projects and policy consulting activities, contributing more to the process of summarizing and consulting on local and national development policies, etc.

In addition, the University must comprehensively inspect and review the infrastructure, equipment system, and training support services: from offices, lecture halls, electricity and water, machinery and equipment serving training, scientific research, environmental landscape, etc. to invest and improve quality. There are conditions that we cannot change such as floor area and infrastructure. But what we need to do well is to use it effectively, safely, economically, and with a sense of responsibility for the environment and landscape of the workplace. Office culture is emphasized so that the University of Social Sciences and Humanities can always promote its identity and tradition, while being a dynamic, professional, and integrated working, learning, and research environment.

In short, after the inspection process, there are many areas that we have and will continue to reform and adjust to improve quality.

Preliminary survey session of educational institution quality assessment activities according to the quality accreditation standards of the Ministry of Education and Training at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in 2015

2. Post-audit is a measure of development

-Talking about the scores of quality inspections. Is the score also a factor that makes many units “hesitant” to inspect?

There is indeed a fear of scores: What if the score is low after the assessment? Why is this program's score low and that program's score high? This school's score is low and that school's score is high?...

No, the problem is not the score. That is not the goal we need to achieve. Our goal is to see how we are, what we need to overcome to do well. Only when participating in accreditation and approaching the standards, can we see what level we are at. At the same time, we need to clearly distinguish the current standards we are applying in accreditation (domestic accreditation has the standards of VNU and the standards of the Ministry of Education and Training; international accreditation has the standards of AUN - Asean University Network); distinguish the system of classifying the training programs of the University (standard system, high-quality system, strategic mission - international class), or look at the correlation between the social sciences and humanities and the natural sciences... to see that when comparing the scores with each other, it is only relative. For example, when assessed according to the AUN standards, the standard training program of the Faculty of Oriental Studies was rated 4.3/7 points, but cannot be compared with the score of 4.57/7 of the Faculty of Linguistics (a strategic mission program - international standard, which has been heavily invested).

In 2015, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, along with many schools in the VNU system, conducted an assessment of training facilities according to the standards of the Ministry of Education and Training. Our school achieved 56/61 criteria, which is considered the best result compared to other schools in this period. That number is also a recognition of the school's efforts in the past time. At the same time, we must also acknowledge the criteria that we have not yet achieved.

- So what happens after the inspection?

Accreditation is not just to “diagnose” what disease we have, more importantly, it is to propose plans, solutions and implementation of how to “treat that disease”. Therefore, I often say that accreditation is necessary, post-accreditation is much more important. School-level accreditation is conducted every 5 years, including initial assessment, mid-term re-assessment to see how improvements, innovations, and fixes have been made… Currently, we are only focusing on accreditation work but not paying enough attention to post-accreditation work. Post-accreditation also requires resources and cannot be carried out easily.

- What plans will the School implement in the next stage of quality assessment activities?

Quality assurance is continuous, long-term and sustainable. In particular, accreditation activities need to take place regularly and substantially. The entire system, from the school level to each unit, needs to take seriously and voluntarily conduct SELF-ASSESSMENT, in addition to other accreditation teams coming to assess themselves. According to the plan of VNU by 2020, all undergraduate training programs must be accredited for quality, of which 1/3 must be accredited according to AUN standards. Thus, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities needs to accredit 24 undergraduate training programs, of which 8 programs are according to AUN standards. If we do not actively implement, we will not be able to ensure progress.

Training programs need to be accredited according to domestic standards before registering for accreditation according to AUN standards. Because the budget can only partially support the accreditation work, the School must balance its financial resources to create conditions for a long-term and sustainable implementation roadmap. Therefore, the accreditation of training programs must be carried out evenly for the years from now until 2020. In recent times, the School's Training Quality Assurance Center has been very active, implementing increasingly professional accreditation activities. Functional departments and faculties have become familiar with accreditation work, and a proactive spirit has been promoted. It can be said that the current work is much more favorable, faster and more effective.

- Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Thi Minh Hoa, in 2012 you started to hold the position of Vice Principal of the School, in charge of finance, administration, and facilities management, and since 2014 you have been assigned to be in charge of quality assurance. After 2 years of working in this field, how do you feel?

At first, I thought this was a difficulty, a challenge for me. I would have to spend a lot more time and effort on this additional assigned work. Fortunately, during my time as Head of the Faculty of Tourism Studies (2010-2012), I directly organized and participated in the work of assessing the training program of the Faculty, so I had some experience. However, school-level management has many new things compared to faculty-level management. With the motto "if you don't know, don't understand clearly, you have to learn", I directly participated in many training sessions. When doing something, you have to be wholehearted, clear and coherent. I am glad that so far, the actual results from the quality assessment work have created a clear change in the awareness and actions of the School. Many faculties are ready to register for assessment in the coming time. Looking forward to the upcoming period, I also have confidence. The belief that we not only ensure the progress of the inspection, but more importantly, it is innovation. The important thing is whether we are determined? The conditions to ensure success are: "Correct perception - High determination - Feasible plan - Effective implementation".

Sincerely thank Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Thi Minh Hoa for sharing.