Director of the Academy of Social Sciences Vo Khanh Vinh has said there is a major shortfall in the number of PhDs being handed out in 36 areas of research, meaning Vietnam is struggling to fill posts with sufficiently qualified people.

By 2020, the academy will have passed around 500 PhDs. The academy organised a ceremony for 50 doctors to defend their thesis within the first ten days of April alone.

Some of people estimate that the academy passes nearly 20 PhDs a month.

Commenting on the topic on social networks, many people have suggested this conveyor belt approach to higher education may see quality suffer.

Speaking at the conference, Director of the Academy of Social Sciences Vo Khanh Vinh said the academy is allowed to train 350 PhDs for 36 areas annually, or just less than 10 PhDs for each.

"With the current capacity, we can pass more PhDs than the figure of 350. Some important areas for the country's development have still the limited number of PhDs, particularly in the education sector," Vinh noted.

Director of the Academy of Social Sciences Vo Khanh Vinh  at the press conference

The professor said that, "It is inappropriate to suggest 350 is too much compared with the country's population of 90 million people. The rate is very small compared to many regional countries."

According to Vinh, the academy conforms to the Ministry of Education and Training's requirements on the PhD training process. Students have to complete their thesis in line with the regulated time and anyone who fails will have to follow the course again.

"Besides the academy's 412 professors and associate professors, we also invite thousands of lecturers who are at least PhDs from different agencies nationwide for our doctoral training courses," Vinh said in reply to reporter questions about the training quality.

According to the Ministry of Science and Technology, Vietnam has 24,300 PhDs and 101,000 masters. The figures represent an increase of 7% and 14% per annum, respectively. However, statistics showed that a large number of them remained unemployed or received salaries much lower than expected.

Some experts suggest that Vietnam should learn India's experiences from India which mostly ends up seeing its scientists working abroad.

However, doubts have been raised if Vietnam is capable of benefiting from better qualified staff anyway due to bad management. Even the most well-qualified also have bad foreign language skills. Although Vietnamese workers have won prizes at skills competitions in the region, Vietnamese productivity is still five times lower than Malaysia.