In the future, Vietnamese university students will be able to graduate a year early, according to a new plan approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.
According to VietnamNet, the new education framework, signed on November 18, will cut one year from the normal university curriculum while leaving the 12-year general education track as is. Under the current system, local students undertake between four and six years of university studies. A standard arts, economics or humanities degree takes four years, while engineering and medicine degrees require five and six years, respectively.
Deputy Minister of Education and Training Bui Van Ga told the news source that the restructuring will “help put fresh graduates into the workforce as quickly as possible”. At the moment, Vietnam’s universities are following a pathway established by the 2005 and 2009 education laws. Ga explained that the global education landscape has changed so much in recent years that the old system has caused the country to fall behind.
It’s entirely too early to tell whether the revamp will help local students gain a competitive edge in international job markets, but it might just be what Vietnamese institutions need to catch up with their Southeast Asian counterparts. Recent studies by online ranking services put Vietnam’s universities way behind Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia’s.
While most local colleges are taking the news well, with some even sharing that they have been offering similar abridged programs for a while, leaders from universities with heavily science-oriented programs have voiced concerns that the duration cut won’t allow their students enough time to acquire the skills and knowledge they need.
Tran Van Top, deputy director of the Hanoi University of Science and Technology, shared with VietnamNet that in deciding whether to shorten a program, the nature of the field and university infrastructure are two important factors.
He added that redesigning curricula might be easier for economics and social sciences institutions than medical, pharmaceutical and arts universities whose service quality might suffer under a compressed curriculum.
[Photo via Flickr user ILO in Asia and the Pacific]
