JarJar Nixon's Blues Kitchen

Vietnamese Universities Lack Qualified Lecturers Monday, November 24,
2008 9:54 AM

(Source: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS) Vietnamese universities lack
qualified lecturers HANOI, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam is suffering from
a shortage of qualified lecturers in universities and colleges, with the
ratio of students to professors 743 to one, the Vietnam News Agency
reported on Monday, citing statistics from the National Title Council
(NTC) of Vietnam.

The number of professors in Vietnam is smaller than that of
universities.

Of 369 universities and colleges with more than 1.6 million students,
there are more than 56,000 lecturers; of which only 314 are professors
and
1.845 are associate professors, according to NTC.

As the country lacks of qualified lecturers, the Department of Science
and Technology (DST) under Vietnam's Ministry of Education and Training
(MoET) has recently brought up the proposal of allowing only associate
professors and professors as guest lecturers in universities.

The proposal is to improve the quality of teaching in Vietnam' s
universities and colleges, said Ta Duc Thinh, head of MoET's DST.

The recent proposal sparked concerns among Vietnamese university
leaders, saying that if the proposal was approved, many universities and
colleges in Vietnam would face great difficulties as the number of
professors and associate professors who can give lectures is very small.

Currently, the rate of doctors teaching in Vietnam's universities is
14.7 percent, while in colleges, the figure is 1.4 percent, said NTC.

The MoET targets by 2020 to raise those figures to 20 percent in
universities and five percent in colleges, said Tran Thi Ha, head of the
Department of Undergraduate and Post-Graduate Training.

Delta Air Lines is planning to start daily services from the U.S. to
Vietnam.
Starting June 1, 2009, passengers wishing to travel to Ho Chi Minh City
can fly on Delta to Tokyo and take a connecting flight from there to
Vietnam.

The services are subject to government approval and Delta, under the
name of its merger partner Northwest Airlines, has applied to the
Department of Transportation for permission.

Currently, United Airlines is the only carrier offering flights from the
U.S. to Ho Ch Minh City via Hong Kong.