Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam’s education sector has been ordered to shape up andimprove its public image.

The Government asked the Ministry of Education and Training to take measures tosolve cases related to teacher redundancy and teacher recruitment in somelocalities at a meeting between the Government’s working group and the ministryon March 28.

The move follows a series of recent events such as the mass lay-off of 500 DakLak province teachers and the sad fact that a teacher with 10 years ofexperience earns less than minimum wage.

The ministry was also requested to address cases which caused society to losetrust in teachers, for example, teachers forcing students to take extraclasses, school violence and cases related to teacher’s ethics.

“What has the ministry done to end such cases? We are very sad to hear that aneighth grader in Ben Tre province was violent against a teacher, a teacherasked students to kneel down as a punishment and then the students’ parentsasked the teacher to kneel down and a pregnant teacher (of another school) wasasked to kneel down,” said Mai Tien Dung, Minister and Chairman of the Officeof the Government and the working group’s leader.

The certifying of professors and associate professors must be open andtransparent, Dung said, urging the ministry to accelerate the construction ofuniversities.

Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha said that the ministry hasworked with localities to ensure that recruitment of teaching students is basedon real demand.

Job opportunities for teaching graduates depend on each locality’s recruitmentpolicy, Nha said.

The ministry will review the records of professor and associate professorcandidates by March 31 and will not certify unqualified ones. It is alsostudying a draft proposal on criteria for certifying professors and associateprofessors and will submit it to the Prime Minister for approval, he said.

Regarding university entrance exams, this year, financial accounting andengineering majors of some universities require students to take literature,history and geography tests. The Government asked the ministry to review thecase and not allow universities to ignore quality to fill in recruitmentquotas.

Nguyen Van Phuc, Education and Training Deputy Minister, affirmed that trainingquality must be ensured, threatening to name and shame universities which failto follow admission regulations.

Following Government efforts to slash the number of business conditions andadministrative procedures by half, the ministry plans to remove and simplify 91out of 212 business conditions to encourage investment into improving educationtraining quality and taking care of students, the minister said.-VNA