Talking about the university education in the time to come, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) said that Vietnam strives to upgrade the training quality, while it does not intend to expand the network scale.

Deputy Minister of MOET Bui Van Ga, in the interview given to Tien phong newspaper, said MOET has asked for the permission from the Prime Minister to stop granting licenses to open more universities. The ministry is adjusting the program on developing the network of universities and junior colleges to be submitted to the Prime Minister for approval.

“The main principle to be pursued is that we need to focus on improving the training quality, while we do not try to develop the scale rapidly,” Ga said.

He went on to say that no new school would be set up in the localities with a high density of schools already. In Hanoi and HCM City, where local authorities plan to relocate universities to the suburbs, it’s obvious that there’s no need to establish more schools in the inner city.

Ga has denied the fact the existence of too many schools has forced schools to scramble for students, because there are too few students to enroll.

Ga said that MOET always tries to set up the floor marks low enough for schools to have enough students to enroll. The floor marks are the minimum marks examinees must have from the university entrance exam to be eligible for applying for study at universities and junior colleges. The students, who fail the exams to some schools, may register to study at other schools, if their exam marks are equal to the floor marks or higher.

As such, according to Ga, the supply of students is very profuse: 700,000-800,000 students reportedly can satisfy the requirements on the minimum marks.

Especially, MOET has “helped” schools seek students by allowing the students from 62 poor districts in the country to enroll in universities without having to sit the entrance exams.

However, this does not mean that schools would be able to find students. The schools located far from the central areas or not well equipped, or the schools which set overly high tuitions, for example, would be refused by the students.

In principle, state owned schools would be the top priority choice for Vietnamese students. Those, who cannot satisfy the requirements to study at state owned schools, would go to people-founded schools. Therefore, non-state owned schools always have to offer attractive preferences to attract students.

Tien phong has reported that a people-founded university promised a high commission of 25 percent to those who bring students to the school. The special marketing method has been applied after it could enroll only tens of students a year in the last few years.

The Ha Hoa Tien people-founded school has made a wise move which helped it increase the number of students. Since 2011, it has been enrolling students for vocational training and junior college training as well. More students have registered to study at the school, because they can transfer credits to continue studying at higher levels at the same school.

MOET has been criticized violently in recent years for the overly high number of universities licensed. With easy conditions for school establishment, a lot of people-founded schools have been set up, which have been left idle because they cannot enroll students.

A people-founded school, which reportedly can enroll tens of students only a year, has declined to show the figures about the enrolment this year. In 2011, the student, who came first at the university entrance exam to the school only got 14/30 marks.