On April 15, 2011, the 4th Quality Assurance Conference of Vietnam National University, Hanoi was held at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities.Attending the conference were Dr. Pham Xuan Thanh (Deputy Director of the Quality Assurance Department - Ministry of Education and Training), Prof. Dr. Mai Trong Nhuan (Director of Vietnam National University, Hanoi), and leaders of member units of Vietnam National University, Hanoi. This conference focused on evaluating the results achieved in the key tasks of quality assurance work set out at the 3rd conference, and also discussed the key tasks for the 5th liaison conference. Speaking at the conference, Prof. Dr. Mai Trong Nhuan emphasized: The conference needs to focus on discussing solutions to improve quality. In particular, the culture of quality needs to be approached from the perspective of the workers and through a process-oriented approach, implementing quality assurance activities with subsequent evaluation and assessment, then summarizing and replicating that model. The report summarizing the quality assurance work of Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU) highlighted the outstanding results achieved in VNU's quality accreditation work, such as: enhancing the quality assurance capacity of VNU's staff, developing a quality culture environment; updating and revising quality accreditation standards for VNU's training units and training programs; implementing student feedback collection, and evaluating international joint training programs of VNU's affiliated units...
At the conference, Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Kim Son – Vice Rector of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities – presented a paper entitled “Initial Steps in Building a Culture of Quality at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities”. The Vice Rector emphasized that building a culture of quality must be linked to ensuring the quality of teaching and learning for both faculty and students; it must be linked to ensuring the quality of departments/majors/training programs; and it must be linked to improving and enhancing the quality of training. Evaluation, improvement, improvement, and then evaluation and improvement create a quality cycle. This is also the path to building a culture of quality in universities. A representative from the University of Economics also presented a report on “Experiences in participating in the accreditation of training programs according to the standards of the ASEAN University Network (AUN-QA)”. The report clearly states that from the preparation phase, including assessing the current state of the training program and preparing the workforce for the evaluation, to the self-assessment phase, followed by external evaluation and receiving evaluation results, all stages require thorough preparation in terms of personnel, communication, training, and coordination among units. This 4th conference also discussed and agreed that the 5th liaison meeting will be held at the University of Technology and will focus on key tasks such as: revising and promulgating the Regulations on Quality Accreditation within the Vietnam National University, Hanoi; developing and promulgating documents on quality culture at all levels; ensuring 100% of courses are evaluated by undergraduate students in the second semester; implementing 70% of lecturers evaluating lectures using self-assessment forms; and organizing the step-by-step evaluation of heads of training units...
