Finance in Draft Tertiary Education Law: Many Unclear Points

The document of 11^th National Representative Congress XI affirms that “It is necessary to make basic and comprehensive changes to Vietnam’s education in a standardisation-, democratization- and global integration- oriented manner”. Vietnam’s education has developed in terms of scale and product diversity and provided the major human resource for the market. However, there exist many contrary opinions regarding profit or non-profit issues in university education at many fora.

 

Item 3 Article 10 in the draft law stipulates that “To implement socialization of university education, to promulgate policies which stimulate non-profit private and foreign-invested universities…” Furthermore, in order to avoid cases in which a university wants to make profit, Item 3 Article 6 strictly provides that “the margin between revenue generated from and expense for training activities and scientific research of private universities shall be partly allocated to infrastructure construction, equipment purchase and capacity improvement, etc. and the remaining, if divided among investors and employees of the universities, tax shall be charged as regulated by the law.” However, there are many arguments about “the appropriate amount” as mentioned above and whether it is possible to quantify the “margin between revenue generated from and expense for investment”.

 

On 5 October, the Association of Non-public Colleges and Universities in Northern Vietnam organized a workshop to contribute ideas to the 5^th draft tertiary law. Accordingly, many representatives requested that the draft law clarify profit and non-profit elements. In fact, Article 20 provides that “To forbid education activities for the purpose of making profit”, which means the State does not accept for-profit education. However, Article 66 states that “the remaining income shall be divided among fund contributors”, which leads to a way of understanding that both public and private universities have profit sharing, which means they are both profit-oriented. It is obvious that there are many misunderstandings and arguments regarding these elements.

 

Educational socialization is a major guideline and a long-term strategic solution of Vietnam with a view to improving materialistic and spiritual strengths of the whole society for the education career. The State also aims at creating open access to education in the most appropriate manner. During the past years, the State has paid attention to making investment in the education field. A significant budget amount has been allocated to training and education sector. State budget and collection from study fee have partly guaranteed the requirement to improve training quality for public universities. In addition, it is State policy to mobilize non-state budget resources to facilitate educational development. The State, therefore, does not forbid operation of for-profit universities but it promulgates appropriate policies for such operation.

According to Prof. Bui Van Ga, Deputy Minister of Education and Training, also Deputy Head of Tertiary Education Law Drafting Board, the major objective of the draft law is to establish a solid legal corridor for educational activities in order to improve quality and create qualified human resource for national development. Therefore, the issue of for-profit or non-profit operation needs to be understood correctly.

 

Given the context in which Vietnam’s university education is integrating more and more into regional and global education system, issuance of university education is necessary so as to harmonize with global treaties and better manage international co-operation activities in this area. In order to map the law with our country’s education reality, it is vital that more profound and comprehensive research on finance, profit or non-profit issues be conducted. In the meantime, however, Item 3 Article 10 and Item 3 Article 60 are considered most relevant.