Held on October 22 in Ba Vi, the conference aimed to evaluate postgraduate training in 2010 and 2011 and set out directions and tasks for the 2011-2012 school year, while also outlining key solutions to improve the quality of postgraduate training.Attending the conference were Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Van Nha - Head of VNU Training Department, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Khanh - Rector of the University, representatives of the Board of Directors, postgraduate training assistants of the faculties. Associate Professor Dr. Pham Van Quyet - Head of the Graduate Training Department - presented a general assessment report on postgraduate training. Accordingly, postgraduate training in 2010 and 2011 had positive changes in terms of quantity, quality and organization. In 2009 and 2010, the School organized admission once in August. In 2011, the School conducted admission twice in May and September. Including the number of students admitted in the first round of 2011, the total number of postgraduate students of the School was 2,285 compared to the total number of full-time students. The scale of the University Training Program reached 37.9%, including 2,060 postgraduate students and 225 doctoral students. The number of postgraduate students who are international students is 48, including 10 doctoral students. In 2010 and 2011, the School had 4 more postgraduate training programs approved by VNU and allowed to implement training, including 2 doctoral training programs: Han Nom, Archival Studies, 2 master's training programs: Social Work, Management Science, bringing the total number of postgraduate training programs implemented in the School to 64, including 31 doctoral training programs, 33 master's training programs. Currently, the School has 4 standard training programs waiting for VNU's appraisal and is promoting the construction of 5 standard training programs. The organization of training is carried out quite strictly, in accordance with the training process of the credit-based training regulations.
At the conference, some limitations in postgraduate training in 2010 and 2011 were also pointed out in the general assessment report: The current postgraduate training programs were all adjusted in the 2007-2008 school year, but most of the adjusted training programs only stopped at the mechanical horizontal conversion from the training organization method based on the year system to the training method based on credits, some training majors are not attractive to learners, the organization of postgraduate training depends heavily on guest lecturers, some faculties do not have full-time assistants but mainly part-time teachers. Speaking at the conference, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Khanh - Principal of the School - emphasized some key tasks of postgraduate training in the 2011-2012 school year, specifically as follows: continue to strengthen the application of positive factors of credit-based training; Functional departments coordinate to convert undergraduate and postgraduate training programs in close connection; focus on innovating training management to be more formal and professional; strengthen international cooperation in postgraduate training, especially programs under strategic tasks, review master's and doctoral training programs to consider which programs are no longer suitable and ready to replace them and research to build new majors to meet social needs, the team of managers and assistants need to fully understand the regulations on postgraduate training. Representatives of the leaders of the units also gave some opinions to improve the quality and effectiveness of postgraduate training: Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Thi Minh Hoa - Head of the Faculty of Tourism Studies - clearly stated that inviting lecturers to participate in master's training has fundamental advantages: attracting many experts in different fields to meet the learning purposes and interests of students. However, there are also certain difficulties: limited pedagogical skills, low training regime... This is a common reality of many faculties, so Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Thi Minh Hoa has also made some recommendations: adjusting teaching remuneration for master's degrees, having a mechanism for inviting experts to give talks or teaching assistants for specialized subjects. Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Thanh Hung - Vice Head of the Faculty of Literature - proposed that it is necessary to focus on developing and further enhancing the position and role of postgraduate training assistants in the direction of professionalization. Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Thanh Hung also proposed two options: either have an official position to take on the role of training assistants or continue to maintain the system of assigning teaching staff to concurrently work as postgraduate training assistants, but there should be certain preferential regimes. Some opinions of representatives of other units were also brought up for discussion on some other activities related to postgraduate training: assessment, external activities and some regulations in the postgraduate training regulations at VNU issued under Decision No. 1555. The conference agreed on the direction and tasks of postgraduate training for the 2011-2012 school year with the following basic targets: + Strategic tasks: Ensuring that postgraduate students of the 2008 and 2009 courses successfully defend their theses and meet the graduation requirements; develop and implement 2 more training projects under the strategic tasks + Organize for over 500 postgraduate students and 45 PhD students to successfully defend their theses and graduate. + Organize the entrance exam according to the instructions of VNU, expected to recruit 900 new postgraduate students. + Organize master's and doctoral training programs according to the content of regulation 1555 of VNU; complete and submit to VNU the specialized programs that are being developed. And the main solutions proposed include: + Actively innovate teaching methods and assessment methods + Standardize and adjust training programs; update new subjects; limit repetitive subjects/topics of the previous level + Build the process and organize graduate training according to the semesters of the regular university training system + Assessment and evaluation must be carried out according to the subject outline; encourage highly effective assessment and evaluation forms... + Coordinate with VNU to deploy postgraduate training management software.
