Education
Ministry scraps unauthorised programmes at vocational schools
  • | Tuoi Tre | January 08, 2012 11:58 PM

The Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) has recently closed down unlicensed undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programmes at four Ho Chi Minh City schools which are licensed to run short-term vocational courses only. 

 
The Ho Chi Minh City campus of Raffles Vietnam, one of the four schools that have been recently punished by the Ministry of Education and Training for offering unauthorised courses.
The quartet includes the Institute of Accounting and Business Management (IABM), ERC Institute Vietnam, ILA Vietnam, and Raffles Vietnam.

They had joined hands with international partners to run those illegitimate programmes, the ministry said.

In its recent inspections of the four, MoET found ERC, a Singaporean school, enrolling 365 students for bacherlor’s and master’s degree programmes.

It also discovered that Raffles had recruited 396 students who were then trained at its campus for associate’s and bachelor’s degree programmes.

A foreign-owned school, ILA has illegally admitted 240 students to associate’s degree programmes since 2008, 212 of whom graduated and got their degrees awarded by its international partners, the ministry said.

Another 23 are expected to finish their courses in March, according to the results of the inspections.

Meanwhile, the local school IABM had offered business courses from undergraduate to doctoral levels to 190 students, the education watchdog said.

The ministry has confirmed that it will not recognise the degrees which have been granted to the students of these illegal training programmes.

It has also prohibited three Vietnamese universities from enrolling students for the next academic year, which starts in September, following their violations of its regulations on facilities and faculty members.

Those are very rare measures ever taken by the ministry, which may signal its determination to tighten the control over the education sector after years of loose management.

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