Vietnam First University Gets Independent Quality Evaluation

Danang City's University of Pedagogy became the country's first university to receive a quality evaluation from an independent Vietnamese evaluation center. The Center for Education Quality Assurance, under the management of Vietnam National University – Hanoi (VNU-Hanoi), recently performed an evaluation of the University of Pedagogy, respecting the official evaluation criterion supplied by the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET). "Evaluation of the quality of education provided by universities and colleges is very important. Therefore, we should be transparent about the quality of each training facility to help learners understand their options. It can also help those facilities uncover areas of improvement and become more competitive," Deputy Minister of Education and Training Bui Van Ga said. The center has expedited preparations to evaluate the quality of education provided by other training facilities as well. As of September this year, the center organized nine training courses for more than 300 evaluators. The Center for Education Quality Assurance was designed to evaluate and certify universities and training programs nation-wide, except for universities and training programs managed by VNU-Hanoi. Since the foundation of the center in September 2013, some education experts have said the establishment of such centers would improve the quality of education because more universities would be evaluated. Such working groups would make decisions on the certification of universities and training programs without the interference of any third party. However, some others wondered about the objectivity of decisions made by such centers, as these centers are run by the Vietnam National University, which is still under the management of the MoET. They suggested that education regulatory agencies should be independent from the MoET if they are to raise the quality of evaluations. (Vietnam News Oct 30)