DECISION

ADJUSTING THE MASTER PLAN ON THE UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE NETWORK DURING 2006-2020

Pursuant to the Law on Organization of the Government dated December 25, 2001;

Pursuant to the Law on Education dated June 14, 2005, the Law on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Education dated November 25, 2009, and the Law on Higher Education dated June 18, 2012;

Pursuant to the Government’s Decree No. 92/2006/ND-CP dated September 07, 2006, on formulation, approval and management of the master plan on socio-economic development and the Government's Decree No. 04/2008/ND-CP dated January 11, 2008, amending and supplementing a number of Articles of the Government's Decree No. 92/2006/ND-CP dated September 07, 2006, on formulation, approval and management of the master plan on socio-economic development;

Pursuant to the Decision No. 121/2007/QD-TTg dated July 27, 2007, of Prime Minister, approving the master plan on the university and college network during 2006-2020;

Pursuant to the Decision No. 1216/QD-TTg dated July 22, 2011, of Prime Minister, approving the master plan on Vietnam's human resources development during 2011-2020;

At the proposal of the Minister of Education and Training;

The Prime Minister promulgates the Decision adjusting the master plan on the university and college network during 2006-2020,

Article 1. To approve adjustment of the master plan on the university and college network during 2006-2020 with the following principal contents:

1. Viewpoints of planning

a) To expand reasonably the scale of higher education, to meet requirements of the industrialization and modernization career; conform with socio-economic conditions of country; to restructure the human resource training system, to improve quality and efficiency of training, provide training based on social needs; to associate the work of training with scientific research and practice operation;

b) To combine harmoniously the use of the market mechanism’s positive factors with the improvement of the efficiency and effectiveness of state management; to strengthen budget investment, training, re-training higher education lecturers and administrators; to make land fund for the construction of universities and colleges; to ensure social equity; to adopt policies supporting for disadvantaged areas and learners being subjects prioritized and encouraged to study; to push up the work of educational socialization aiming to mobilize all social resources for participating in higher-education development;

c) To perform unified state management in respect to universities and colleges regarding training policies, planning and quality, standardization of lecturers, financial management requirements, and international cooperation. To strengthening decentralization in management, raise the autonomy and accountability of universities and colleges; to build up several strong universities and colleges, to form university clusters; to remedy the scatteredness of network; to encourage coordination among localities in opening colleges and universities;

d) Development of the university and college network must conform with development strategies, socio-economic conditions, and scientific and technological potential of country, in association with  each region and locality; to formulate reasonably structure of training disciplines and qualifications based on regions; to build several centers training of human resource at high qualification, in association to key economic regions and motive economic regions; to form several centers training of human resource concentrated in regions, and university zones meeting the relocation of universities from the inner areas of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and new investment needs;

dd) To ensure the specified criteria on the quality and quantity of lecturers, scale of land area, physical facilities, techniques and equipment in line with the investment ability of state budget and mobilization ability of social resources;

e) To prioritize the establishment of new universities and colleges with sufficient potential and conditions; to limit the upgrade of existing ones; to encourage training in disciplines in the industrial field; to rationally balance the training structure among university, college, professional secondary and vocational levels and among disciplines, basic sciences and technical- technological sciences; to ensure transferability among training forms and qualifications;

g) To concentrate on investment in construction of international-level universities and colleges, key universities and colleges, universities and colleges in deep-lying, remote and disadvantaged areas, and in crucial fields; to encourage development of private universities and colleges aiming to increasingly mobilize social resources for investment in higher education, on the basis of ensuring quality, social equity, and associating with talent development;

h) To thoroughly grasp the Resolution of the XIth National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam on fundamental and comprehensive renovation of education and training; Conclusions of the third and sixth conferences of the XIth Party's Central Executive Committee on renovation of the growth model, increase of quality, efficiency and competitiveness, strong and profound renovation of the perception and thinking on education and training; education administration; and mechanisms and policies of financial investment for higher education.

i) To closely combine education and training with strategy on socio-economic development, consolidation of national defense and security, demand for highly qualified human resources of country, the trend of science and technology development, and requirement for fundamental and comprehensive renovation of Vietnam's higher education by 2020.

2. Objectives of planning

a) By 2020, to have 256 students per 10,000 people, around 70%-80% of university students to be trained under occupational and application programs, and around 20%-30% of students to be trained under research programs;

b) By 2020, to have averagely 17-26 university and college students per 1 lecturer; around 21% of lecturers possessing doctorate degree in total university lecturers and around 4% of lecturers possessing doctorate degree in total college lecturers;

c) After 2020, the land area and construction area of universities and colleges will reach the prescribed standard on the average space per student; to form university clusters for foreign-invested universities in Vietnam;

d) By 2020, to ensure to have sufficient textbooks and learning materials as required for students in all subjects and disciplines;

dd) By 2015, to have 10 universities each of which will have at least one faculty (discipline) or training field satisfying the quality criterion similar to universities have prestige on the world; by 2020, to have 20 universities reaching the above target and by 2020, to have one university ranked among 200 world leading universities;

e) Foreign students studying in Vietnam will account for over 1% of total students by 2015, and 3% by 2020.

3. Contents of planning

a) The aggregate scale of university and college training:

- By 2020, the aggregate scale of university and college training will reach 2,200,000 students (an increase of around 1.8% in comparison with the 2010-2011 academic year), and number of new students of formal training who are enrolled will reach around 560,000 students (an increase of around 8.2% in comparison with 2010);

- By 2020, there will be 460 universities and colleges nationwide, including 224 universities and 236 colleges.

b) The training scale of universities

The training scale of universities and colleges is determined on the basis of ensuring conditions and elements affecting to quality such as: quantity and quality of lecturers, physical facilities for training, classrooms, laboratories, student dormitories and ability to apply information technology in the work of training and administration of universities and colleges, concurrently is balanced in line with the characteristics of universities and colleges, training disciplines, training levels and administration capacity to ensure for training quality to be increased. The training scale (the number of students converted to the formal training form) of various groups of universities and colleges is oriented as follows:

- Hanoi National University and Ho Chi Minh City National University: around 42,000 students;

- Other key universities: around 35,000 students;

- Universities and institutes that provide training in technical-technological, economics, law and teachers-training disciplines and other fields in association with technique and economy: around 15,000 students;

- Universities and institutes that provide training in health and socio-cultural disciplines: around 8,000 students;

- Universities and institutes that provide training for gifted disciplines: around 5,000 students;

- Colleges for diversified disciplines at multi-training levels: around 8,000 students;

- Colleges that provide training in technology and community colleges: around 5,000 students;

- Colleges for training the gifted disciplines: around 3,000 students.

c) Disciplines:

- Prioritized disciplines: a number of disciplines in natural sciences, social sciences and humanities; information technology; electronic engineering and automation; bio­technology; new material technology; a number of technical and technological disciplines to satisfy requirements of industrialization and modernization; training of lecturers and highly qualified experts in the service sector;

- By 2020, the proportion of trained students in industry, transport and construction disciplines will occupy around 31%; natural sciences, social sciences and humanities will occupy around 14%; teachers training and education administration will occupy around 10%; economics, business administration, accounting, finance, banking, law and social assistance will occupy around 31%; agriculture-forestry-fisheries will occupy 5%; health-pharmacy will occupy around 6%; and arts, sports and physical training will occupy about 4%.

d) Structure of training qualification:

- The proportion of university students in comparison with university and college students will account for around 64% by 2015 and around 65% by 2020;

- To continue establishing newly professional secondary schools and expanding programs on professional secondary education in colleges and community colleges;

- To study development of a two-year college-level education program.

dd) Forms of higher education institutions include:

- Public institutions;

- Private institutions;

- Foreign-invested institutions (100% foreign investment or joint venture or partnership with foreign parties).

e) System of higher education institutions includes:

- National universities;

- Universities;

- Universities, academies, colleges and community colleges.

g) University and College Networks include:

- Universities and academies provide training pursuant to orientation of research;

- Universities and academies provide training pursuant to orientation of application;

- Colleges provide training pursuant to occupational orientation.

h) The university and college network is regionally arranged as follows:

- The northern mountainous and midland region is expected to have 57 institutions by 2020, including 15 universities and 42 colleges;

- The Red River delta is expected to have 157 institutions by 2020, including 91 universities and 66 colleges;

- The northern central and the central coastal regions are expected to have 88 institutions by 2020, including 38 universities and 50 colleges;

- The Central Highlands region is expected to have 15 institutions by 2020, including 5 universities and 10 colleges;

- The southeastern region is expected to have 93 institutions by 2020, including 55 universities and 38 colleges;

- The Mekong River delta is expected to have 50 institutions by 2020, including 20 universities and 30 colleges.

Depending on the socio-economic development situation of regions, zones, human resources required for national defense and security, as well as the implementation of international commitments on education and training, the Ministry of Education and Training may report to the Prime Minister for consideration of the establishment of several other higher education institutions apart from those expected by 2020.

i) Students and institution networks are distributed according to three key economic regions:

- The northern key economic region (in association with the Red River delta): The proportion of the students learning in region in total students nationwide will make up around 40% by 2020. To attract investment in establishment of several universities with 100% foreign capital or domestic and foreign joint ventures and partnerships;

- The central key economic region (in association with the coastal southern central region): To establish a number of new universities and colleges with the aim to satisfy the human resource need for industrialization and modernization in central provinces. Percentage of students learning in region in total students nationwide will be around 15% by 2020;

- The southern key economic region (in association with the southeastern region): Proportion of students learning in the region in total students nationwide will be around 24% by 2020. To attract investment in the establishment of several universities with 100% foreign capital or domestic and foreign joint ventures and partnerships.

4. Implementation solutions

a) Group of solutions regarding investment and capital mobilization:

- To increase gradually investment with state budget for higher education and concurrently strengthen management and increase efficiency of the state budget use;

- To push up educational socialization;

- To attract ODA and FDI capital sources for investment in higher education;

- To push up scientific research, technology transfer and provision of high-quality services in response to social needs aiming to increase incomes for universities and colleges.

b) Group of solutions regarding development of higher education lecturers and administrators

- To supplement quantity and improve quality of university and college lecturers in order to reach the prescribed level of student-lecturer ratio for universities, colleges and groups of trained disciplines;

- To support the training and re-training for university and college lecturers (of both public and private institutions). To carry out program on training 20,000 doctorates for supplementing and increasing quality of the university and college lecturers;

- To formulate and promulgate a working regulation for the university and college lecturers;

- To formulate and implement new wage policies suitable to the university and college lecturers;

- To adopt policies to attract and use scientists of domestic and overseas scientific research institutes to participating in teaching in universities and colleges;

- To renew assessment of the university and college lecturers, through diversified forms and in association with participation of students;

- To adopt plans on postgraduate training exclusively for disadvantaged areas.

c) Group of solutions for improvement of physical facilities

- To provide land supports for universities and colleges. The minimum land area for a 3,000-student college is 6 hectares; for a 5,000-student college is 10 hectares; and for a 7,000-student college is 15 hectares. The minimum area for a 5,000-student university is 10 hectares; for a 15,000-student university is 30 hectares; and for a 25,000-student university is 40 hectares or more;

For inner-city located public schools with small areas (less than 2 hectares) in big cities, it is necessary to have solutions for conversion of land and construction works attached to land to relocate them to new suburban areas with an acreage of 10 hectares or more;

- To adopt mechanisms to facilitate for universities and colleges to actively tap investment resources aiming to renew their physical and technical facilities and equipment;

- To improve capability and raise quality of activities of libraries of universities and colleges; to set up an electronic library system linking universities and colleges in the same area, region and nationwide;

- To establish a global information network and expand international exchanges for all domestic universities and colleges;

- To plan and re-arrange the publishing of textbooks, and reference books and materials;

- To concentrate on investment in modernizing equipment of classrooms and lecture halls; to improve quality of activities providing services for students;

- To invest in renewing, upgrading and building student dormitories, especially for universities and colleges in areas of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City; to encourage investment in building a number of university clusters in the northern, southern and central regions;

- To promote coordination among institutes, scientific and technological research centers and universities in training and research; to build a number of national key laboratories in key universities and top universities of disciplines; to combine tasks of fundamental research with tasks of universities on  the basis of ensuring conditions and quality. To gradually support the establishment and development of technological experiment facilities in colleges.

d) Group of management solutions

- To perform classification and rank of universities and colleges;

- To formulate and adopt specific criteria for the establishment of universities and colleges and expand discipline codes of training. To study amendments and supplements to charters and regulations on organization and operation of universities, to meet new requirements;

- To extensively implement the assessment and accreditation of higher education quality;

- To build a forecast center of human resource demand aiming to provide statistical data, information, exact and full forecasts in serve of planning on development of disciplines and training institutions; to closely follow the master plan on human resource development by 2020;

- To perform multi-disciplinary for single-discipline universities and colleges;

- To consolidate and raise the training capacity and quality of universities, colleges, pedagogic and technical pedagogic;

- To study the management decentralization of universities and colleges in line with practical conditions;

- To assign the autonomous right to universities and colleges in accordance with the Law on Higher Education;

- To strengthen the management of enrolment and training to satisfy quality criteria prescribed by the Ministry of Education and Training;

- To formulate and promulgate specific support policies aiming to push up the socialization of education, development of private and foreign-invested universities;

- To review and complete the system of legal documents on higher education, especially those providing for conditions and procedures for establishment, separation, merging and dissolution of universities and colleges, and to link cooperation of localities in establishment of universities and colleges; to clearly prescribe the responsibilities of the Ministry of Education and Training, ministries, agencies and localities in managing and consulting on the establishment of universities and colleges, and ensuring the training quality of higher education institutions;

- To formulate and promulgate standards and criteria on infrastructure, physical facilities and technical equipment in serve of teaching, studying and scientific research, lecturers and administrators, administrative public employees and civil servants, and regulations on organization and management of universities and colleges;

- To adjust the enrollment quotas, training scale and qualification of universities and colleges in line with practical conditions for quality assurance; stop the enrollment of, merge and dissolve universities and colleges that fail to meet the prescribed standards and regulations and have no remedies in accordance with law;

- To review the schemes on the establishment of universities and colleges which has been approved for guidelines by competent authorities; to classify, assess and compare schemes on the establishment of universities and colleges that have not yet received the in-principle approval and notify investors for adjustment or handling in an appropriate way.

5. Periods of implementation

a) The period 2011-2015:

To concentrate on consolidation and increase of conditions for ensuring the training quality; to stabilize the training scale and quantity of students enrolled newly for courses of formal training; to reduce the training scale and quantity of new students enrolled annually for courses of formal training of universities and colleges that not be eligible for quality; to organize and re-arrange established universities and colleges; to implement the licensed projects that meet satisfy all prescribed conditions for the establishment of schools; to stop the licensing of projects on establishment of new universities and colleges; to withdraw licenses from projects that have been expired for implementation; to adjust the structure of disciplines through permitting to open the training disciplines.

b) The period 2016-2020:

To increase the average annual training scale to around 0.3%/year and increase the average number of students enrolled for courses of formal training around 1.5%/ year; to consider the establishment of a number of multi-discipline universities and colleges according to orientation of research in disciplines under the field of basic science (natural sciences, social sciences and humanities) and high technology (bio-technology, new material technology, automation technology and information technology) to replace the number of universities and colleges already been merged, separated or dissolved; to prioritize the establishment of universities and colleges in key economic areas and strategic areas in the northern midland and mountainous region, the northern central region and the central coastal region, the Central Highlands, the southeastern region and the Mekong river delta; not to establish new ones in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Article 2. Assignment for implementation organization

a) The Ministry of Education and Training:

- To coordinate with relevant ministries and sectors and the provincial/municipal People’s Committees in formulating, promulgating or submitting to competent authorities for promulgation of system of legal documents on standards and regulations of universities and colleges; mechanisms and investment policies to strengthen physical and technical facilities, develop the syllabus and the contingent of lecturers to do as basis for the review and adjustment of the master plans on university and college network;

- To assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with relevant ministries and sectors in, directing and guiding ministries, sectors and localities to review, adjust, arrange and re-organize education institutions under their management; to mobilize investment capital sources for development of the university and college network; to provide indirections to universities, colleges and  training institutions in reviewing and formulating plans and master plans on training the contingent of lecturers satisfying the prescribed standards and regulations on universities and colleges;

- To assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with relevant ministries and sectors in, directing and guiding ministries, sectors and localities to review investment projects on university and college establishment with or without licenses for establishment, to report and propose settlement plans to the Prime Minister.

-To assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with ministries and sectors established universities and colleges, the provincial/municipal People’s Committees in, examining, supervising, assessing and summing up results of arrangement and re-organization of universities and colleges, to report periodically to the Prime Minister

b) The Ministry of Planning and Investment:

- To assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with relevant ministries, sectors and localities in, studying policies and mechanisms of priority and balance, allocating annual development investment capital sources of the central and local state budgets, mobilizing preferential loans, official development assistance, attracting foreign investment capital, mobilizing domestic and foreign funding sources to meet the requirements of higher education development, and reviewing and adjusting the master plan on the university and college network;

- To assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with ministries, sectors and the provincial/municipal People’s Committees in, formulating, promulgating or submitting to competent authorities for promulgation of mechanisms and policies on bid assignment, bidding, assignment of investment tasks, investment incentives, combining the application of bidding forms with the capital allocation for capital construction, supplementing and attracting the economic sectors to participate in investment in development of technical infrastructure and physical facilities for areas planned for construction of concentrated university zones to receive universities and colleges relocated from the inner areas of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and construction works in serve of scientific research and training of universities and colleges subject to be arranged and re-organized.

c) The Ministry of Finance

To assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with ministries, sectors and localities in, formulating, promulgating or submitting to competent authorities for promulgation of financial and credit policies, mechanisms of mobilizing and creating capital sources for ministries, sectors, localities, universities and colleges to invest in technical infrastructure and physical facilities in areas planned for construction of the concentrated university zones, and universities and colleges subject to be arranged and re-organized or dissolved.

d) The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment

To assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with relevant ministries, sectors, the provincial/municipal People’s Committees in, guiding the formulation of plans on land fund; guiding or promulgating additionally regulations on mechanisms and policies on land and natural resources and environmental management and protection involving construction of physical facilities for universities and colleges.

dd) The Ministry of Construction

To guide localities in making master plans on construction and give its agreement on overall and detailed master plans before agencies in charge of investment approve investment projects on technical infrastructure construction of universities and colleges subject to be arranged and re-organized and areas planned to become the concentrated university zones.

e) The Minister of Home Affairs

To coordinate with the Ministry of Education and Training, relevant ministries and sectors and the provincial/municipal People’s Committees in guiding the arrangement and re-organization of the university and college network in line with the objectives and contents of reviewing and adjusting the master plan of the university and college network during 2006-2020.

g) Ministries, sectors and localities established the universities and colleges:

- To assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with the Ministry of Education and Training, relevant ministries and the provincial/municipal People’s Committees in, reviewing and adjusting the university and college network under their management;

- To direct the universities and colleges subject to be arranged and re-organized to handle matters involving finance, property and the personnel work.

h) Relevant ministries and sectors

Other relevant ministries and sectors shall, within their assigned functions, tasks and competence, coordinate with the Ministry of Education and Training in guiding other ministries, sectors and the provincial/municipal People’s Committees established universities and colleges to review and adjust the network to avoid financial losses and asset wastefulness.

i) Universities and colleges:

- To actively assess the real conditions for ensuring the training quality in line with standards and regulations; propose the short-, medium- and long-term plans on development of universities and colleges and report them to the Ministry of Education and Training, agencies in charge  and relevant ministries and sectors;

- To observe decisions of the Ministry of Education and Training, agencies in charge, ministries, sectors and the provincial/municipal People’s Committees on arrangement and re-organization involving the review and adjustment of the master plans of the university and college network.

Article 3. This Decision takes effect on September 01, 2013.

Works that have been carried out under the Decision No. 121/QD-TTg dated July 27, 2007, of the Prime Minister, on approving the master plan on the university and college network during 2006-2020, will be further adjusted for implementation of this Decision.

Article 4. Ministers, heads of ministerial- level agencies, heads of government-attached agencies, and chairpersons of the provincial/municipal People’s Committees shall implement this Decision.