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Executive Summary

Module by: Phuong Nguyen

The project entitled Observations on Undergraduate Education in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Physics at Select Universities in Vietnam was conducted under the auspices of the Vietnam Education Foundation (VEF), an independent U.S. Federal agency. This project, referred to as the VEF Undergraduate Education Project, was begun at the request of Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thien Nhan, presently Minister of Education and Training and, at the time of the request, the Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City. The project was conducted with the cooperation and support of the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) and the co-sponsorship of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (USSH) of the Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM), the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Regional Training Center (SEAMEO RETRAC) in Vietnam, and the Institute for Educational Research in Ho Chi Minh City (IER-HCMC).
Through the auspices of the National Academies in the United States, leading American experts in assessment and instructional design and experts in the selected scientific and engineering fields joined this effort. The Undergraduate Education Project was a multiple case study, qualitative research project with the following phases: (1) Phase 1 from January to August 2006, to assess the current conditions of teaching and learning in computer science, electrical engineering, and physics at four select universities in Vietnam and to identify opportunities for change; (2) Phase 2 from September 2006 to August 2009, to assist in implementing changes; and (3) at the end of Phase 2, to produce models that can be adopted across academic fields and institutions.
Four Vietnamese institutions (two in Hanoi and two in Ho Chi Minh City) were selected to participate in this Undergraduate Education Project. Their names are kept in confidence to preserve their identity and respect their openness and honesty in participating in this study. This project is intended to help higher education leaders and managers in their efforts to advance curriculum, pedagogy, and evaluation in the sciences and engineering in Vietnam.
Site visits in May 2006 by two U.S. multidisciplinary expert teams led to the conclusion that there are five critical areas of Vietnam higher education in need of change: undergraduate teaching and learning, undergraduate curriculum and courses, instructors, graduate education and research, and assessment of student learning outcomes and institutional effectiveness. Not all of the issues identified are present in all of the programs, departments, and institutions that were visited. Nonetheless, the teams identified many good examples of solutions to the problems and issues that can provide models for others to adopt. Furthermore, the teams found very good students; dedicated, hard working, and competent junior and senior faculty members; and enthusiastic and forward looking administrators at all levels. They also found exciting research currently underway and the use of advanced technologies and equipment.
Specifically, the teams identified Issues and Opportunities for Change in relationship to the five critical areas and offered general recommendations for consideration at the national level. The following list highlights the primary issues and opportunities as this section comprises an essential part of the report. The bulleted items under each area briefly describe the major issues that were identified and the potential solutions suggested by the site visit teams related to these issues. Please note that the conclusions reached by the U.S. expert teams are specific to the situations that they evaluated and may not be universally true in all cases. Also, please note that the issues are purposefully not listed in any order of priority, and thus are not enumerated.
Undergraduate teaching and learning
  • Ineffective teaching methods: lectures, presentation of factual knowledge, rote memorization, little use of homework, not much faculty-student interaction.
Potential solutions include incorporating active learning strategies, requiring graded homework, emphasizing conceptual learning or higher order learning, and establishing Centers of Teaching and Learning Excellence.
  • Inadequate facilities and resources.
Potential solutions include modernizing classrooms, libraries, and laboratory facilities; and providing resources (people and equipment) to support teaching and learning.
Undergraduate curriculum and courses
  • Too many courses (over 200 credits to graduate).
Potential solutions include giving more autonomy to institutions in terms of curriculum content and sequencing so that departments can consolidate courses in order to decrease the overall number of credits to graduate.
  • A large number of requirements and few choices.
Potential solutions include increasing flexibility and providing more elective courses.
  • Out-of-date content of individual courses and the overall curriculum, which are not at the same level of top universities worldwide. In particular, not enough concepts and principles are taught and too much emphasis is placed on factual knowledge and skills.
Potential solutions include emphasizing higher order thinking skills (application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) in instruction and then testing for higher order thinking skills.
  • An imbalance between theoretical courses (concepts and principles with too much emphasis on factual knowledge) and applied/practical courses (laboratory or practicum experiences).
Potential solutions include developing more applied hands-on experience, practical applications, exercises, and projects.
  • Lack of common or professional skills (team work, oral and written communication in English, project management, problem solving methods, pro-active initiative-taking, life-long learning).
Potential solutions include providing English language instruction and providing opportunities to develop skills through course activities and in real-life settings (work-study, internships, and practicum experiences).
  • Lack of flexibility to transfer between majors.
Potential solutions include developing articulation agreements between majors within the same institution and between institutions.
  • Courses and curricula are not guided by explicit statements of expected student learning outcomes.
Potential solutions include providing expectations for, and assistance in, developing student learning outcomes as the basis for program curricula and course syllabi.
Instructors
  • Lack of qualified teachers.
Potential solutions include increasing research-oriented universities and having top universities produce undergraduate instructors for other Vietnamese universities.
  • Low level of academic preparation of teaching faculty.
Potential solutions include providing advanced degree opportunities in Vietnam and abroad.
  • Lack of skills of faculty in modern teaching practices and research.
Potential solutions include conducting professional development programs in pedagogy and research skills.
  • Lack of up-to-date knowledge by faculty in their fields with regard to curriculum and course content.
Potential solutions include providing access to recent scholarly resources, up-to-date curricula, syllabi, and related learning materials on the Web.
  • Faculty overworked and underpaid for an acceptable teaching load and, therefore, lack the time necessary for teaching preparation, availability to students, and research.
Potential solutions include reducing teaching load; hiring and paying instructors “full-time” with understanding that they will work 40 hours per week at their home institution with a balance of teaching, research, and service; and increasing time for research by providing support and assistance in the form of teaching assistants as graders, research assistants, and clerical assistants.
  • No incentives for faculty to upgrade teaching skills, courses and curricula, and research ability since promotion and salary increases seem to be based on teaching load and seniority, not on merit, performance, or conducting research.
Potential solutions include establishing merit-based reward system; rewarding and recognizing teachers who make improvements in teaching, learning, and research.
Graduate education and research
  • Little opportunity for Ph.D.s, who have studied abroad, to pursue their research or apply the teaching methods learned abroad when they return to Vietnam.
Potential solutions include hiring Ph.D.s, who have studied abroad, when they return to Vietnam to provide leadership in disseminating the use of the discipline knowledge, teaching methods, and research skills; providing adequate graduate library resources and access to recent scholarly resources on the Web; upgrading laboratories; and offering support for international conference attendance.
  • Academic inbreeding, thus inhibiting a dynamic research environment.
Potential solutions include employing graduates from other universities.
  • Separation of research institutes and laboratories from teaching departments, thus limiting the opportunities for many faculty members to engage in research activities.
Potential solutions include reorganizing the structure and relationships of the universities, research institutes, and laboratories so that more research is conducted in universities by teaching faculty and graduate students.
Assessment of student learning outcomes and institutional effectiveness
  • Lack of clearly articulated and coordinated student learning outcomes at the institutional, departmental, program, and course levels.
Potential solutions include setting expectations for the creation and use of student learning outcomes at the institutional level, basing program curricula on general student learning outcomes, including specific student learning outcomes in course syllabi, and providing support for development and implementation of student learning outcomes through Centers of Teaching and Learning Excellence and University Assessment Centers.
  • Institutional effectiveness not evaluated in terms of student learning. As a result, faculty have little motivation since few incentives or rewards are given for change.
Potential solutions include holding institutions accountable for improving student achievement as part of institutional accreditation; and basing resource allocation for institutions, departments, and programs, at least in part, on student learning outcomes.
  • Program and course quality not based on evaluation of student learning.
Potential solutions include developing and implementing a system of program review based in part on the achievement of student learning outcomes in individual courses and in the program as a whole, as well as developing and implementing a system for course evaluation and annual review of faculty to provide feedback on teaching and learning for the purpose of improvement.
  • Lack of institutional research infrastructure at university level.
Potential solutions include creating offices of institutional research, providing training for academic administrators responsible for research functions, and providing electronic resources for tracking, analyzing, and reporting student data including enrollment, progress toward degree, graduation, and learning outcomes.
Recognizing that MOET has a significant role in relationship to Vietnamese universities, the U.S. expert teams also identified broader, more general recommendations, suggesting that MOET might want to consider the following:
  • How to expand the university education system throughout Vietnam, with appropriate distribution across the country, so as to increase accessibility to more high school students to obtain a university education. The current 255 universities do not meet the demand.
  • Ways to prepare highly trained future faculty by empowering the current major universities to produce excellent teachers in sciences and technology for the other Vietnamese universities.
  • Options for making a strategic decision to fund fundamental and basic research in universities to ensure future generation of scientists.
  • Possibilities for providing more local institutional autonomy and flexibility to enhance quality and to keep curricula up-to-date.
  • How to develop the accreditation process to include assessment of student learning outcomes and to work with local institutions to develop or enhance the program review process for academic departments.
  • Ways to develop a mechanism to ensure that resources distributed are based on merit and quality.
  • How to evaluate the level of quality of universities across Vietnam, based on student learning and research, and to establish a mechanism to assist those institutions at a lower level of quality to rise to the highest possible level.
  • How to enable access to the latest public information for all universities via high speed Internet connections to electronic journals and data bases.
  • Ways to build instructor capacity in content, teaching methods, interaction with students, and research through systematic professional development efforts.
  • How to reorganize the faculty workload to give instructors more time for preparation, interaction with students, and research.
  • Ways to revise and reorganize the MOET mandated curriculum so that students spend more time on learning relevant content and on integrating course information.
  • How to improve teaching methods in high school to better prepare students for a new, more demanding, post-secondary education.
  • Ways to help high school students to be prepared to choose a major while still in high school.
In addition to Issues and Opportunities for Change, this report includes the following sections: Discipline Specific Observations, that presents brief comments on the specific areas of computer science, electrical engineering, and physics; Scenarios for Change, that presents scenarios at the national, regional, institutional, and programmatic levels; and Conclusions, in which the educational importance of this Undergraduate Education Project is discussed. The report also includes extensive appendices providing more details on various aspects of the project.

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