Final working session of the external evaluation team at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities

The meeting participants, on the side of the external evaluation team, included 5 members: Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Hoi Nghia - Head of the team; Associate Professor, Dr. Do Hanh Nga - Secretary; Dr. Nguyen Kim Dung - Standing member; MSc. Lam Tuong Thoai - Member; MSc. Dinh Tuan Dung - Member; and MSc. Ho Dac Hai Bien - Secretariat.

On the side of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU, the members include Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Khanh, Principal of the University; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pham Quang Minh, Vice Principal of the University; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Thi Minh Hoa, Vice Principal of the University; and the entire board of members self-assessed according to the decision of the University.

Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Hoi Nghia (Head of the evaluation team) informed about the work done.

Speaking at the meeting, Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Hoi Nghia, on behalf of the external evaluation team, expressed his thanks to the Party Committee, the School Board, managers, lecturers, staff, students, postgraduates, alumni, businesses... who have supported the team during the past time.

Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Hoi Nghia shared: the comprehensive assessment process of a university is a very difficult process, requiring many discussions to be completed. Today's meeting is only the last meeting during the official survey and assessment period at the school. After this meeting, the external assessment team will write an external assessment report and send a draft to the education quality assessment center for reporting. At the same time, the Head of the assessment team will also send a complete draft of 61 criteria to the School. After receiving the complete draft assessment, the School will have time to study and send a response letter to the external assessment team. After receiving the response in the letter, the external assessment team will review and send a notification to the educational institution of the team's opinions, and finally, the team will officially send the external assessment report to the accreditation organization.

After their speech, the external evaluation team reported on the work they had done; outlined the team’s findings during their visit and evaluation of the school over the past four days, and finally presented their preliminary results based on 10 criteria. Each criterion presented three main contents: strengths, shortcomings, and recommendations from the team for the school to improve.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Ngoc Lieu (Head of Training Department) spoke at the meeting

Responding to the delegation's report, Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Ngoc Lieu, Head of the School's Training Department, added: The school has 23 training majors - 29 single-standard training programs and 157 double-degree training programs (second majors). Specifically, the school has designed 4 majors to meet social needs with the total of all remaining majors in the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU. In addition to studying any major, students of the school can also study 1 of 4 majors: Journalism and Communication, International Studies, Tourism Service Management and Management Science. These four majors are designed as second degrees with the University of Foreign Languages ​​of VNU; in addition, there are 2 majors of history and literature in association with the University of Education.

This design is like a menu board, giving students choices and more and more students sign up, Associate Professor Dr. Tran Ngoc Lieu said.

Regarding the evaluation team's comments on course registration, Associate Professor Dr. Tran Ngoc Lieu provided more information about the course registration process at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU. This process can be divided into two stages. In the first stage, students had a lot of trouble and suffering due to the poor information technology infrastructure... But from 2014 to now, course registration has become much more convenient, and students have almost no questions.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Thi Minh Hoa (Vice Principal of the School) spoke at the meeting

In order to discuss further with the evaluation team about the facilities and finances, Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Thi Minh Hoa, Vice Principal of the School, shared: Regarding the School's facilities, there are assets that are past the depreciation period and have not been liquidated because the School benefits from a variety of asset sources, not only from the School's own sources but also from funding sources from embassies, organizations, etc. All assets purchased by the School are strictly followed, with an annual inventory and liquidation when due, while other assets often depend on the opinions of the sponsors.

Regarding the report on the financial budget and revenue and expenditure plan of the School, it often depends on many different contexts. Often the School plans a lower financial budget than the actual revenue, because the School is aiming for diversified revenue activities, from centers, services, companies, in addition to the revenue from foreign students which changes according to the objective context, difficult to control.

Dr. Hoang Van Luan (Head of Scientific Research Management Department) spoke at the meeting.

Representative of the School's Scientific Research Management Department, Dr. Hoang Van Luan also gave feedback on the products of scientific research topics. It was not until 2014 that VNU issued clear regulations on the products of the topics (specifically, published articles must clearly state which product the article belongs to). From that reality, the topics being implemented in 2012-2013, there were articles that were published and did not comply with this regulation and led to the results, there were articles that did not have the mark of the topic.

Speaking at the meeting, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Khanh, Principal of the School, highly appreciated the results of the external evaluation team's work: "The members of the team, under the leadership of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Hoi Nghia, worked very actively and professionally, with high intensity and good results."

Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Khanh (School Principal) gave a speech

The evaluation team’s assessments of strengths and weaknesses and recommendations on that basis are relatively appropriate to the current conditions of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU. On the basis of providing additional information for the evaluation team to consider, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Khanh emphasized a number of points:

The University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU has developed regulations on decentralization of management within the school many times. Specifically, the latest document issued in 2015 is based on new government decrees on the two national universities. In addition, there are regulations on decentralization of management and guidelines for operating procedures at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU.

Regarding the field of social sciences and humanities, the scientific research budget of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU, Hanoi may be the highest in the country. Specifically, in the 5-year period from 2010 to 2015, the University has implemented about 20 state-level projects, about 14 projects under the basic research fund (not including the grassroots and VNU-level projects). Thus, increasing the scientific funding source to match the orientation of building a research university in the future will be a difficult problem.

The Board of Directors of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU took a souvenir photo with the evaluation team

Regarding the staff, due to the regulations of VNU and the limited supply of social science PhDs, in addition to the fact that the University's talent attraction policies are not strong enough, some criteria regarding the staff are not yet guaranteed.

Regarding the digitization of documents in the faculties, the University has had a policy for a long time, digitizing all documents, connecting them to the network, so that they can be accessed anywhere, but it has not yet been approved by VNU. Intellectual property registration activities follow the general regulations of VNU.