National Economics University: Aiming at Becoming Advanced Research University in Region

With over 50 years of development, National Economics University (NEU) is a leading university for training and research in economics area. It is also a key university, a reliable address for human resource training for Hanoi and the whole nation as well. Looking forward to the 1000^th anniversary of the founding of Thang Long – Hanoi, when human resource is a hot issue for any ages, especially now when Vietnam is integrating strongly into global economy, journalists of VIB Forum has an interview with Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Nam – Headmaster of NEU.

 

Competition is one of the laws of the market economy. University training conforms to this rule as well. University training in Vietnam is making basic changes, but such changes are subject to pressure (for instance, some premises are not ready). However, in case of our university, this is not a big problem. We are willing to compete in order to reach a development level like other branches in the same training system and other international universities in Vietnam. International universities in Vietnam require high training fee and thus, are suitable with a section of population. Students of NEU are those with high marks for their entrance exams. Graduates from NEU receive good appraisal from the society, especially from the enterprise community for their ability to adapt to and catch up with real life. NEU has over 50 years of development, has cooperative relationship with more than 100 prestigious universities and research institutes in the world. The university prides itself on having a team of highly qualified officials and lecturers, including professors, associate professors, doctors and masters. The university has trained tens of thousands of young intellectuals for the country. Our objective, besides providing university training, is to aim at providing postgraduate training with new training technologies in order to distinguish our training from that of other economics universities and international universities in Vietnam. Currently, there are over 40,000 taking courses at NEU. They will be the one who prove NEU’s competitiveness. I lay my trust on them. I strongly believe that after graduating from NEU, they will be good managers and businessmen/businesswomen who help further polish the image of NEU and enhance the university’s competitiveness. However, for further changes and better training quality, many issues needed to be discussed. “Self-control” in education and training is one of such issues.

 

The annual budget for education sector keeps increasing. In 2009, it accounts for 20 percent of Vietnam’s GDP (approximately VND100,000 billion). However, this figure is still unable to meet factual requirements.

 

It is necessary to identify the objective of self-control in order to have comprehensive evaluation. First and foremost, self-control in terms of finance is to lessen the budget burden and improve training quality. Good identification of objectives and requirements of financial self-control will provide a good direction and policy. It can be said that financial self-control will play a key role in improving university training quality.

 

However, though being one of the first five universities for the self-control mechanism to be applied, we are restricted by many mechanisms and suffer a loss when the regular budget is cut. A typical example is that we still have to ask for permission from the Ministry of Education and Training for any equipment purchase exceeding VND100 million. Another example is the implementation of socialization in constructing a building for working and studying for the university. The project got approval from the government in 2003 with a capital amount of VND500 billion. However, after some price adjustments were made, the total estimate could amount to VND1,000 billion. Annual budget is VND50 billion only, which reduces investment effectiveness of the project since the execution time is long, price of materials has rocketed against that in 2003. Up to now, raw construction remains uncompleted. We are submitting to the Ministry of Education and Training to apply socialization mechanism when constructing this building. Hopefully, our proposal will soon be ratified.

 

Self-control in training programme is yet to be exercised absolutely. Such subjects as physical training and defence training cost lots of money every year but are yet to be suitable for students’ comprehensive development.

 

NEU is one of key universities in Vietnam. It serves as the biggest center for economics and business management in Vietnam. NEU is also an economics science research center which helps train human resource, make socio-economic policies of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), the State, sectors and localities, provide consultancy and transfer technology for economics and business management. During its establishment and development, NEU is directly assigned by the government with many large and important research issues. Completing these research issues, NEU has made a contribution in terms of basis for argument and reality for CPV and the State’s policies, etc. Within the last two years, NEU has organized a series of scientific seminars at state level.