Decision No. 37/2013/QD-TTg dated June 26, 2013 of the Prime Minister on the adjustment of the master plan on the university and college network in the 2006-2020 period

THE PRIME MINISTER

Decision No. 37/2013/QD-TTg of June 26, 2013, on the adjustment of the master plan on the university and college network in the 2006-2020 period

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

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

Pursuant to the Government’s Decree No. 92/2006/ND-CP of September 7, 2006, on elaboration, approval and management of socio-economic development plannings and the Government’s Decree No. 04/2008/ND-CP of January 11, 2008, amending and supplementing a number of provisions of the Government’s Decree No. 92/2006/ND-CP of September 7, 2006, on elaboration, approval and management of socio-economic development master plans;

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

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

At the proposal of the Minister of Education and Planning;

The Prime Minister promulgates the Decision on the adjustment of the master plan of the university and college network in the 2006-2020 period,

Article 1. To approve the adjusted master plan on the university and college network in the 2006-2020 period with the following principal contents:

1. Planning viewpoints

a/ To reasonably expand higher education to meet industrialization and modernization requirements and conform with the country’s socio-economic conditions; to restructure the human resource training system with a view to improving training quality and efficiency and providing training in response to social needs; to associate training with scientific research and practice;

b/ To harmoniously combine the promotion of the market mechanism’s positive factors with the improvement of the efficiency and effectiveness of state management; to increase budgets for training higher education lecturers and administrators; to set aside land for the construction of universities and colleges; to ensure social equity; to adopt support policies for disadvantaged areas and learners prioritized and encouraged to pursue study and, at the same time, to boost the socialization of education in order to mobilize all social resources for the development of higher education;

c/ To perform unified state management of universities and colleges in terms of training policies, planning and quality, standardization of lecturers, financial management requirements, and international cooperation. To further decentralize management powers to and raise the autonomy and accountability of universities and colleges; to build up a number of strong universities and colleges, to form university clusters; to redress the scatteredness of the existing network; to encourage coordination among localities in opening colleges and universities;

d/ Development of the university and college network must conform with the country’s development strategies, socio-economic conditions and scientific and technological potential and must be associated with each region and locality; to reasonably structure training disciplines and levels which must be regionally appropriate; to build a number of qualified human resource training centers linked to key economic regions and driving economic regions; to form a number of regional human resource training centers and university clusters for the relocation of universities from the inner areas of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and to meet new investment demands;

dd/ To ensure that requirements on the quality and quantity of lecturers, land area, physical and technical bases and equipment are met in conformity with the state budget investment capacity and mobilized social resources;

e/ To prioritize the formation of new universities and colleges with adequate potential and conditions; to restrict the upgrade of existing ones; to encourage training in disciplines in the industrial field; to rationally balance the training structure between university, college and professional secondary and vocational levels and between disciplines, basic sciences and technical-technological sciences; to ensure transferability between training forms and levels;

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

h/ To thoroughly grasp the Resolution of the XI^th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam on basically and fundamentally renovate education and training; the conclusions of the third and sixth plenums of the XI^th National Party Congress’ Central Committee on the renovation of the growth model, improvement of quality and efficiency and competitiveness, strong and profound renovation of the perception and thinking on education and training; education administration; and investment and financial mechanisms policies for higher education.

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

2. Planning objectives

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

b/ By 2020, to have 17-26 university and college students per lecturer; around 21% of university lecturers and around 4% of college lecturers to hold a doctorate degree;

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

d/ By 2020, to ensure 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 reaching the training quality similar to that of internationally accredited universities; by 2020, to have 20 universities reaching the above target and in 2020 to have one university ranked among 200 world leading universities; 

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

3. Planning contents

a/ Overall university and college training scale:

- By 2020, the aggregate university and college training scale will reach 2.2 million students (an increase of around 1.8% over the 2010-2011 academic year) and the formal training enrollment will reach around 560,000 students (a rise of around 8.2% over 2010);

- By 2020, the country will have 460 universities and colleges, of which 224 will be universities.

b/ Training scale of universities

The training scale of universities and colleges is based on quality conditions and factors such as the quantity and quality of lecturers, training facilities, classrooms, laboratories, student dormitories and the capacity to apply information technology to training and administration work and, at the same time, is balanced in accordance with the characteristics of universities, training disciplines, training levels and administration capacity to ensure improvement of training quality. 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 providing training in technical-technological, economics, law and teachers-training disciplines and other technical-economics fields: around 15,000 students;

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

- Gifted students training universities and institutes: around 5,000 students;

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

- Technology colleges and community colleges: around 5,000 students;

- Gifted students training colleges: 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; bio-technology; new material technology; a number of technical and technological disciplines to meet industrialization and modernization requirements; training of trainers and highly qualified experts in the service sector;

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

d/ Training level structure:

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

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

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

dd/ Forms of higher education institution include:

- Public institutions;

- Private institutions;

- Foreign-invested institutions (100% foreign investment or joint venture or association with foreign partners).

e/ The system of higher education institutions includes:

- National universities;

- Universities;

- Universities, academies, colleges and community colleges.

g/ The network of universities and colleges comprises:

- Research-oriented universities and training academies;

- Application-oriented universities and training academies;

- Career-oriented training colleges.

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

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

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

- The northern central region and the coastal southern central region is expected to have 88 schools by 2020, including 38 universities and 50 colleges;

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

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

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

Depending on the regional socio-economic development situation, 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 a number of other universities apart from those slated for 2020.

i/ Proportions of students and school networks according to three key economic regions:

- The northern key economic region (associated with the Red River delta): The proportion of the region’s students will make up around 40% of the country’s total number of students by 2020. To attract investment to establish a number of 100% foreign-owned or foreign-invested joint venture universities;

- The central key economic region (associated with the coastal southern central region): To establish a number of universities and colleges to meet the human resource demand for industrialization and modernization in central provinces. The number of the region’s students will represent around 15% of the country’s total number by 2020;

- The southern key economic region (associated with the southeastern region): The proportion of the region’s students will be around 24% of the country’s total number by 2020. To attract investment in the establishment of several 100% foreign-owned or foreign-invested joint venture universities.

4. Implementation solutions

a/ Investment and capital-raising solutions

- To step by step increase state budget for higher education and at the same time increase the management and efficiency of the state budget use;

- To boost the socialization of education;

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

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

b/ Solutions on development of higher education lecturers and administrators

- To increase the quantity and improve the quality of university and college lecturers to reach the set student-lecturer ratio for universities and colleges and for groups of disciplines;

- To support the training of university and college lecturers (of both public and private schools). To implement a program on training 20,000 doctors to increase the number and raise the quality of university and college lecturers;

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

- To elaborate and implement new wage schemes suitable to university and college lecturers;

- To adopt policies to attract scientists working in domestic and overseas scientific research institutes to give lectures in universities and colleges;

- To renew the assessment of university and college lecturers by adopting diversified forms of assessment by students;

- To adopt postgraduate training plans exclusively for disadvantaged areas.

c/ Solutions for physical base improvement

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

To adopt measures for conversion and swapping of land and construction works attached to land for inner-city located public schools with small areas (less than 2 hectares) in big cities to relocate to suburban areas with an acreage of 10 hectares or more;

- To adopt mechanisms to help universities actively tap investment resources in order to renew their physical and technical bases and equipment;

- To raise university libraries’ operating capacity and quality; to set up an electronic library system linking universities in the same area, region and the whole country;

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

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

- To concentrate investment in modernizing equipment of classrooms and lecture halls; to improve the quality of student services;

- To invest in renewing, upgrading and building student dormitories, especially for universities in 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 key national laboratories in key universities and top universities; to assign basic research tasks to universities on the basis of ensuring conditions and quality. To step by step support the formation and development of technological experiment facilities in colleges.

d/ Management solutions

- To categorize and rate universities and colleges;

- To elaborate and adopt specific criteria for the establishment of universities and colleges and the training in new disciplines. To study amendments and supplements to the charter and organization and operation regulations of universities to meet new requirements;

- To extensively assess and accredit higher education quality;

- To build a human resource demand forecast center to provide statistical data, information, precise and full forecasts to serve the planning of development of the education sector and training institutions; to closely follow the human resource development master plan through 2020;

- To help single-discipline universities and colleges diversify their disciplines and training areas;

- To consolidate and raise the training capacity and quality of teachers or technical teachers colleges and faculties;

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

- To assign the autonomous right in accordance with the Law on Higher Education;

- To intensify the management of university enrolment and training to ensure quality criteria set by the Ministry of Education and Training;

- To elaborate and promulgate specific support policies to boost the socialization of education, and develop private and foreign-invested universities;

- To review and complete the system of legal documents on higher education, especially those stipulating conditions and procedures for establishing, separating, merging and dissolving schools and linking localities’ cooperation in setting up universities and colleges; clearly stipulating responsibilities of the Ministry of Education and Training, ministries, agencies and localities to manage and consult on the establishment of universities, and ensure training quality of higher education institutions;

- To formulate and promulgate standards and criteria on infrastructure, physical bases and equipment for teaching, studying and scientific research, lecturers and administrators, and the staff of administrative public employees and civil servants, and regulations on the organization and management of universities and colleges;

- To adjust universities’ enrollment quotas, training scale and knowledge to conform with practical conditions to ensure quality; halt the enrollment by, and merge and dissolve universities that fail to meet quality and regulations and have no remedies in accordance with law;

- To review the approved schemes on the establishment of universities; to classify, assess and compare schemes on the establishment of universities that have not received in-principle approval and notify investors for adjustment or appropriate handling.

5. Implementation periods

a/ The 2011-2015 period

To focus on consolidating and increasing conditions to ensure training quality; to stabilize the training scale and the number of newly enrolled formal training students; to narrow the training scale and annual number of newly enrolled formal training students of schools that fail to meet quality conditions; to organize and re-arrange established schools; to implement licensed projects that meet all conditions for the establishment of schools; to halt the licensing of new school establishment projects; to withdraw licenses from projects that have been licensed but not yet carried out; to adjust the structure of disciplines through permitting the opening of training disciplines.

b/ The 2016-2020 period

To increase the average training scale to around 0.3%/year  and the number of the average new formal training students to around 1.5%/year; to consider the establishment of a number of multi-sectoral or multi-discipline schools with research-oriented training in disciplines in basic sciences (natural sciences, social sciences and humanities) and high technology (bio-technology, new material technology, automation technology and information technology) to replace the number of merged, separated or dissolved universities; 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 coastal southern central 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. Organization of planning implementation

a/ The Ministry of Education and Training shall:

- Coordinate with related ministries and sectors and provincial-level People’s Committees in formulating and promulgating or submitting to competent authorities for promulgation the system of legal documents on university and college standards and regulations; mechanisms and investment policies on consolidating physical and technical bases, developing the syllabus and the contingent of lecturers to serve the review and adjustment of the school network master plan;

- Assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with related ministries and sectors in, instructing and guiding ministries, sectors and localities to review, adjust, arrange and re-organize education institutions under their management; mobilize investment capital sources for the development of the school network; instruct training schools and institutions to review and formulate plans and master plans on training the contingent of lecturers to meet standards and regulations on universities and colleges;

- Assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with related ministries and sectors in, instructing and guiding ministries, sectors and localities to review university establishment projects with or without establishment license and report settlement plans to the Prime Minister.

b/ The Ministry of Planning and Investment shall:

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

- Assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with ministries, sectors and provincial-level  People’s Committees in, formulating and promulgating or submitting competent authorities for issuance mechanisms and policies on bid assignment, biddings, assignment of investment tasks, investment incentives, the combination of the application of bidding forms with the allocation of supplementary investment capital and the attraction of economic sectors’ investment in technical infrastructure and physical bases development for areas zoned off for building a concentrated university zone to welcome universities and colleges relocated from the inner areas of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and construction works serving scientific research and training of universities to be arranged and re-organized.

c/ The Ministry of Finance shall assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with ministries, sectors and localities in, formulating and promulgating or submitting to competent authorities for issuance financial and credit policies, mechanisms to mobilize and create capital sources for ministries, sectors, localities and schools to invest in technical infrastructure and physical bases in areas zoned off for building a concentrated university zone and universities and colleges to be arranged and re-organized or dissolved.

d/ The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment shall assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with ministries, sectors and provincial-level People’s Committees in, guiding the formulation of land plans; guiding or promulgating supplementary regulations on mechanisms and policies on land and natural resources and environmental management and protection related to the building of physical bases for universities and colleges.

dd/ The Ministry of Construction shall guide localities in formulating construction master plans and give its agreement on overall and specific master plans before investment managing agencies approve technical infrastructure construction investment projects of universities and colleges to be arranged and re-organized and areas zoned off for a concentrated university zone.

e/ The Minister of Home Affairs shall coordinate with the Ministry of Education and Training, related ministries and sectors and provincial-level People’s Committees in guiding the re-arrangement and re-organization of the school network to conform with the goals and contents of reviewing and adjusting the master plan of the university and college network in the 2006-2020 period.

g/ Ministries, sectors and localities having universities and colleges shall:

- Assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with the Ministry of Education and Training, related ministries and provincial-level People’s Committees in, reviewing and adjusting the school network under their management;

- Instruct schools to be arranged and re-organized to perform financial, property and personnel tasks.

h/ Related ministries and sectors shall, according to their assigned functions, tasks and competence, coordinate with the Ministry of Education and Training in guiding other ministries, sectors and provincial-level People’s Committees having schools to review and adjust the network to avoid financial losses and property wastefulness.

i/ Universities and colleges shall:

- Actively assess the real conditions for ensuring training quality to conform with standards and regulations; propose short-, medium- and long-term school development schemes to the Ministry of Education and Training, managing agencies and related ministries and sectors;

- Abide by decisions of the Ministry of Education and Training, managing agencies, ministries, sectors and provincial-level People’s Committees on arrangement and re-organization related to the review and adjustment of the master plan of the school network.

Article 3. The Decision takes effect on September 1, 2013.

Works that have been carried out under the Prime Minister’s Decision No. 121/QD-TTg on July 27, 2007, approving the master plan on the university and college network in the 2006-2020 period, will be further readjusted under this Decision.

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

For the Minister of Education
Deputy Minister
NGUYEN THIEN NHAN