Fifteen universities nationwide have received a dispatch from the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), which requests the schools to cancel the recognition for matriculation of thousands of MA course students.

MOET released the decision after finding out that the thousands of graduate students were exempted from attending the foreign language exam, a compulsory exam subject, which means that the schools violated the Circular No. 10 dated in 2011, which stipulates the regulations on enrolling learners for master training courses.

The schools include many big names such as the Hanoi National University, the Hanoi Economics University, HCM City Economics University and Hanoi Foreign Trade University.

With the decision, the learners who have been following the training courses for master degree may have to stop learning.

Quynh Anh, an officer of the Information Center under the Ministry of Construction, who graduated from the Hanoi Foreign Language Pedagogical University, has become a learner without having to attend the entrance foreign language exam. By the day of attending at the class, she had been working as a teacher at the Foreign Language University, a member of the Hanoi National University.

“I would be ready to attend an additional foreign language exam. This would not be a big challenge for me, because I am a foreign language teacher and I speak foreign language every day. However, it would be unreasonable to abrogate the recognition for matriculation,” Anh said.

She went on to say that in order to become a learner of the training courses for a master degree, candidates had to pass professional entrance exams and they only did not have to attend the foreign language exam. The learners received the notice of admission in August 2011 and began learning in October 2011. As such, they have been following the training for six months.

“Most of us have paid tuition for half of the training course, worth more than 10 million dong. Some of us have paid for the whole course. What should we do now?” Anh questioned.

Hoang Thi Lan Phuong, Deputy Director of the University Training Department under the Ministry of Education and Training, said on Tien phong that foreign language exam is a compulsory exam stipulated in the current valid legal documents. She said that only 15 out of the 130 schools violated the regulations, which show that they deliberately ignore the regulations and they need to be punished.

Meanwhile, representatives of the schools have argued that the regulations are not clear enough, which has led to misunderstanding. An officer of the training division of a southern university said that the circular does not say about the requirements on foreign language skills.

Meanwhile, Phuong of MOET has affirmed that the ministry has every reason to release such a harsh decision. She said that ministry asked the economics school to re-organize the entrance exams right after it discovered problems. However, the school has ignored the ministry’s instruction.

Meanwhile, the other 10 schools complained that they did not receive any warnings from the ministry before they heard about the decision to abrogate the recognition for matriculation.

“We made public the plan to enroll learners for master training courses right at the beginning of the year. MOET also sent inspectors to the school to supervise the exams. The ministry’s officials did not say that we violated the regulations,” the president of a school complained.

Professor Hoang Van Chau from the Hanoi Foreign Trade University said on VTC that according to the circular, the head of the schools set requirements on the foreign language skills of candidates. Therefore, leaders of schools think that they have the right to make decisions on exempting exams for some subjects.