Facing student shortages after university entrance exams, private education institutes have continued to express their disagreement with government policies.

Students participating in university entrance exams

Nguyen Van Hung, Headmaster of Luong The Vinh University said, "the government has policies to support students in public schools but nothing for students in private schools. I think they should reconsider this."

Based on their university entrance exam scores, students are more likely to choose universities which require lower fees.

The head of Asean College complained about the current mechanism, saying that not only were private universities not given support, but they were also tied down by many rules.

He said universities should be allowed to recruit students who had scores lower than the university passing marks. There were many universities which had available places and students who want to study but they couldn’t because of low passing marks.

"I agree that the quality of new students is important but the teaching methods are the deciding factor in terms of the final results, when the students are ready to leave university." he said.

Chairman of Dong A University in Bac Ninh Province said, "The Ministry of Education and Training is tightly controlling the quality of students via the university entrance exam but does not pay attention to the quality of the graduates. That is back to front."

Private universities in the northern region also said that private universities needed a level playing field before they were accused of having poor teaching methods. For example, several localities had publicly stated that they would not recruit students from private universities as state officials.

In addition, the universities also asked for more transparency from the Ministry of Education and Training. They said the ministry needs to review the difficulty level of entrance exams every year to make accurate adjustments.

"Why do so many students who have low university entrance exam scores, do so well when they study abroad? Maybe they did not enjoy studying before." Deputy Director of Vietnam Private Universities Association said.

Meanwhile, a representative of Dong A University said with current technologies, there is no need to learn so many difficult concepts. Therefore, the university passing marks should be lowered. "Over one million students participated in the university entrance exam and the Ministry of Education and Training has still failed to fill our universities." he said.

The Vietnam Private Universities Association said they will gather opinions from other schools in the southern region and will bring the matter to the Ministry of Education and Training.