The conference to implement the Prime Minister's directive and the Action Program of the Ministry of Education and Training on innovation in higher education management for the period 2010-2012 of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities took place on May 8, 2010. The conference received many valuable and truly dedicated opinions from many teachers and managers on the issue of innovation in management at the University as well as suggestions for the Action Program of the Ministry of Education and Training. The website of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities summarizes some opinions at the conference.
1. Associate Professor, Dr. Dang Xuan Khang - Chairman of the School's Trade Union: Innovation in educational management is one of the focuses of trade union work in 2010.
The Trade Union of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities identifies the innovation of educational management as one of the key tasks of the trade union work in 2010. Based on the instructions of the higher-level trade union and the Party Committee of the University, the Standing Committee of the Trade Union of the University is directing the drafting of the Action Program of the Executive Committee of the University Trade Union on the implementation of the Prime Minister's Directive and the Resolution of the Party Committee of the Department of Education and Training on this issue, including the following main contents:
Firstly, the union will coordinate with the authorities at the same level to organize research and in-depth discussions among union members on “How to ensure and improve training quality?”. The Union Standing Committee will disseminate to union members, first of all union officials at all levels, to raise awareness of innovation in university education management, and find solutions to enhance the role of the union organization in improving the quality of training and scientific research. Secondly, the union will coordinate with functional departments to review, edit or issue new documents and regulations of the School in various fields to suit the innovation of management work. This May, the Trade Union Executive Committee will organize a discussion with the theme "Trade Union and the construction of office culture in the University of Social Sciences and Humanities", on that basis, it will draft the Regulations on the construction of office culture in the University of Social Sciences and Humanities to submit to the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and the Board of Directors after collecting comments from the trade union members. Third, the trade union will further promote its role and participation in innovating management and implementing scientific research work among the staff of the University. The trade union will conduct a discussion on this issue, on that basis, contribute to the University to build the most effective mechanism to improve scientific research capacity, contributing to improving the overall quality of the University.
2. Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Hai Ke - Head of the History Department: From the educational tradition of Hanoi Capital, thinking about improving the quality of university training today
The thousand years of education in Thang Long - Hanoi have shown that: The ultimate glory and identity of Thang Long - Hanoi education and training are mainly expressed and crystallized in university education and training - high-level training to forge intellectual elites. The quintessence of Thang Long - Hanoi University lies in the fact that the university must be responsible for the past and future of its nation, not just aiming at the practical results in the next fifteen years. The competitiveness, responsibility and role of the education and training of the capital must first and foremost be demonstrated by the quality of the training products, which are also the labor resources, not by any other title. As the main driving force for socio-economic development in the period of industrialization and modernization, along with the university system of the whole country, the university training of the capital Hanoi must: First, promote the highest potential and dynamism and creativity of the university training system. To do that, the key is that we must expand autonomy in training and expand academic space in university training. Second, we must focus on improving the quality of the teaching staff. The key and decisive role for quality teaching and learning in modern university education is still the teacher. The mission of the school and the teacher is to awaken the potential in each student and trainee through education, to arouse and develop those internal strengths. If society has the courage to place such an important mission on the shoulders of the teacher, it must do its best to create conditions for the teacher to carry out his mission. What I want to especially emphasize here is that the current policies on salaries and benefits for teachers in our country are still very unsatisfactory.
Socializing education is an important solution for our country's education system to catch up with other countries in the region and the world.– Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Hai Ke
Third, universities must be responsible for the quality of their output products. This is reflected in the fact that we must objectively assess the output quality of schools and training sectors, and regularly provide indicators on: the capacity of the school, the training sector, and the trainees; inadequacies or contradictions between the number of students enrolled and trained and the socio-economic reality; obstacles in the process of finding jobs for trainees, feedback from labor resource receiving facilities, etc. Fourth, instead of approving projects to open more universities and colleges in Hanoi, it is necessary to direct the construction and completion of 1 or 2 key multidisciplinary schools. The specific capacity and explosive potential of university training is not proportional to the number of schools and classes like... firecrackers, but by the power that is converged and crystallized like the power of a nucleus, which is the essence and quintessence of Thang Long - Hanoi culture, and the requirement of the era of integration and globalization. Fifth, it is necessary to socialize education, truly considering education as the cause of the entire Party and the entire people. The correct application and implementation of socialization of education is the solution to the problem of awakening and mobilizing responsibility and potential in the social system for the cause of education. Instead of just maintaining the system of public schools, the State must create a social, legal, and political space for the formation of an educational sector where everyone has the right to contribute to the cause of education and the State is the most important component. Socializing education is an important solution for our country's education system to catch up with other countries in the region and the world.
3. Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Chi Hoa - Director of the Center for Training Quality Assurance: It is necessary to regularly and seriously evaluate lecturers' lectures.
Training quality must become the reason for living, prestige and honor of the university itself. University management must shift to taking university quality management as the core. In particular, the evaluation of lecturers' lectures is an objective requirement in university teaching. The evaluation of lecturers' lectures has two fundamental benefits: first, it creates a public forum that makes teaching transparent, is an informal form of sanction to reward talented people and criticize those who do not work well; second, it helps to inspire a correct attitude towards knowledge. This is a common and necessary activity in foreign universities, but doing this in the context of Vietnamese culture is not an easy thing.
At the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, collecting feedback from students on lecturers' teaching activities has been carried out since the 2007-2008 school year throughout the school. The cycle includes the following steps: students answer a set of pre-prepared questions to evaluate lectures and lecturers; receive and process data for each individual lecturer; evaluate and compare and determine the average score for the whole school; transfer the results to the principal, dean and lecturers; lecturers base on the evaluation results to improve teaching content and methods. According to this cycle, the content and teaching methods of lecturers will be continuously improved to be better. Also based on these evaluation results, the school can draw experience to make general recommendations for all lecturers in the school, finding ways to overcome weaknesses. Credit training helps enhance the role of students, helping them become the center of the school. Therefore, collecting students' opinions on the quality of lectures should be done regularly and continuously to improve the quality of teaching. However, it is also necessary to note some points such as: the evaluation should not only be based on quantitative questionnaires but also on students providing qualitative comments; the evaluation of lectures will become meaningless if the teacher does not improve the content and teaching methods based on the results; there should be appropriate rewards or commendations for lecturers who have done their teaching job well and received the trust of a large number of students... 4. Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Quang Minh - Head of the Faculty of International Studies: Promoting administrative reform and innovating training programs Before implementing the action program to innovate higher education management, we should have a comprehensive investigation and a close assessment of the current status of activities and training quality of the Vietnamese university system. That is something we have not been able to do so far. Without a comprehensive, specific, and accurate investigation, we cannot have a basis to find the causes and solutions to improve the quality of university training. Reality shows that universities have different scales and training quality, have their own characteristics, and have their own missions and tasks. Therefore, there cannot be a common operating scenario for all schools.
For the School, I would like to make a few contributions as follows: Firstly, it is necessary to thoroughly understand the viewpoint of considering the School as a unified entity, the work and activities of the School are closely related to all units and individuals in the School. The activities of the units are related to each other and create a common strength and image for the School. As long as there is any distinction: "old" faculty - "young" faculty, lecturers - administrative staff, your work is not mine... or there is no sharing of joys and sorrows, working together and enjoying together, not creating a close bond of responsibility, rights, goals and common ideals among members of the School's staff, it is impossible to create effective activities of the School. Secondly, the School needs to promote administrative reform. We currently have too many meetings, which wastes time and effort of staff, and is not economical. If it is simply exchanging information, then make full use of technology, information technology, and the Internet to send and receive. Third, it is necessary to innovate the training program. Currently, there are few common subjects between faculties, and there is still a phenomenon where each faculty is an "oasis" in terms of training programs without a certain connection. This is extremely disadvantageous, especially in the context of credit training and international integration in training as it is today. In addition, it is necessary to diversify training programs and new training forms to suit the needs of learners. For example, abroad, there is a master's training program that can be a 2-year regular program combined with a thesis, but there are also master's training programs that only last 1 year and do not include a thesis... Another thing is that in university and postgraduate training, the learning materials system is extremely important for the research of lecturers as well as students. But currently, the library does not have enough documents and does not have enough updated information to serve. Therefore, the School should invest in building a system of regular and updated materials to serve teaching and learning. The School can research and purchase important specialized documents, especially foreign documents, calculating so that the documents and magazines that it purchases have the lowest cost but the frequency of use is high among lecturers and students. On the other hand, the School should also have a support policy for lecturers to purchase specialized documents and magazines. Because in reality, for lecturers with low salaries as at present, the cost of purchasing books and scientific documents, especially foreign ones, accounts for a significant part of their salary fund but is indispensable for their study and research.
5. Dr. Tran Van Hai - Deputy Head of Faculty of Management Science: Improving training quality starts with people and intellectual property
In recent times, the issue of university training quality has received special attention from public opinion, and is the focus of the Resolution of the Party Committee of Education and Training. However, in the solutions mentioned in the Resolution, there is only one line specifically related to the issue of training human resources - that is, the human issue - which is "continuing to implement training courses for university and college principals". It is possible that university training managers have understood the term management differently, but in my opinion, the most important issue that makes up the quality of university training is the teaching staff. Obviously, there cannot be a high-quality university education when the quantity and quality of lecturers are not commensurate with the increase in the number of students.
Besides the human factor, intellectual property is the second factor that makes up the quality of university training.– Dr. Tran Van Hai
To solve the above problem, I would like to propose: It is necessary to grant autonomy to universities. Autonomy does not mean complete independence, separation from state management, but autonomy within the framework of legal regulations and subject to social supervision. The autonomy of universities is reflected in financial activities, human resources and training programs. Based on autonomy in training programs, universities will know how many lecturers and the quality of lecturers are needed to complete the task. It is necessary to give university presidents the right to decide on salaries for lecturers, based on the evaluation of lecturers' work performance. This avoids the phenomenon of egalitarianism when evaluating lecturers - a cause that reduces creativity in intellectual work of lecturers, causing the phenomenon of brain drain. If the increase in autonomy for universities is implemented, universities with poor training quality that do not meet the requirements of society will have to dissolve themselves without any decision from the state management agency. Besides the human factor, intellectual property is the second factor that makes up the quality of university training. The intellectual property of a university is reflected in the curriculum system, scientific research results, technological products... Regarding this issue, I would like to propose: First, determine the group of intellectual property suitable to the specific characteristics of each group of universities, avoid the phenomenon of over-emphasizing research products belonging to the technology group - the group that can be easily commercialized and underestimating the group of basic research products. Second, resolve the relationship between the group of personal rights and the group of property rights for intellectual property arising in the training and scientific research activities of universities, the relationship between lecturers - scientific instructors and students - authors of research works. Third, limit plagiarism. For research results that do not need to be kept secret, it is best to post them publicly on the school's website, which will help provide information to the whole society, increase the reputation of the university, and help limit the plagiarism phenomenon that is currently a problem in training and scientific research.
