Hanoi (VNA) - The standard foruniversity admission should be raised to ensure higher quality of training,said Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha.

It was necessary for universities to makesure new academic programmes are in line with market demand before introducingnew classes, he said.

Nha was speaking at a teleconference toreview university recruitment for 2019 and set tasks for 2020 held in Hanoi onFebruary 13.

The minister believes university recruitmentfor 2020 needs to resolve any problems encountered in the past 12 months.

Nha pointed out that a number of universitiesannounced new academic programmes that were not relevant to labour demandand admission scores of some majors were extremely low, raising concerns overquality of training.

He said the ministry was compiling plans forhigh school exam and tertiary recruitment autonomy for 2021-2025 which would besubmitted to the Government for approval.

Nha also emphasised the need for closecollaboration between educational institutions and high schools to improve thequality of recruitment.

Nguyen Thi Kim Phung, Director of theDepartment of Tertiary Education under the Ministry of Education and Training(MoET), said the new university recruitment regulations included expanding theautonomy of universities in organising recruitment exam to assure it was linewith the state regulations.

The MoET would include regulations for allmode of study namely full-time and part-time as well as second bachelor’sdegree into one regulation.

Because the standard for teachers has beenraised, there would be no recruitment quota for teachers’ training atintermediate and college levels, except for pre-school education.

Tourism and Information Technology are thetwo majors that would be applied special recruitment quota, Phung said.

Strict regulations would be imposed onviolating universities, officials, labourers and candidates, especially thoserelated to fraud in exams or recruitment.

This year, the MoET will not regulate thecollecting of fees for recruitment. It will be decided by educationinstitutions. However, she said, the fee should be the same as that of previousyears.

Reviewing recruitment for 2019, Phung saidonly 64 percent of accepted candidates enrol in universities.

She blamed this on the fact that candidatesdid not want to study at the university but they were still advised to do so toimprove the achievement for high schools.

“It was difficult for some majors infulfilling their recruitment plans including agro-forestry and fisheries,natural sciences, social services and environment, requiring special attentionfrom the state,” Phung said.

Each year, more than 900,000 candidates takehigh school exams and about 75 percent of them register for universityadmission.

She said as the regulations relating torecruitment were improved, universities had been more proactive in recruitment,enhancing the healthy competitiveness between them./.