Inspection, Examination and Supervision Activities in State Management of Higher Education Quality

training, merging, dividing, separating, and dissolving universities, academies, colleges, and higher education institutions with foreign investment. The Minister of Education and Training shall specify the conditions and procedures for establishing or permitting the establishment, permitting training activities, suspending training activities, merging, dividing, separating, and dissolving colleges;

2. The Prime Minister decides to establish universities, academies, and public universities; decides to permit the establishment of private universities and foreign-invested higher education institutions. The Minister of Education and Training decides to establish public colleges; decides to permit the establishment of private colleges;

3. The person with the authority to decide to establish or permit the establishment of a higher education institution has the authority to decide to merge, divide, separate, or dissolve a higher education institution; 4. The Minister of Education and Training decides to permit training activities or suspend training activities for colleges, universities, academies, scientific research institutes permitted to train at the doctoral level, and higher education institutions with foreign investment capital.

Regarding the authority to issue school charters: the regulations on organization and operation of schools at the university and college levels are specifically stipulated in Decree No. 75/2006/ND-CP dated August 2, 2006 "Detailed regulations guiding a number of articles of the Law on Education": 1) The Prime Minister issues the university charters, the regulations on organization and operation of private universities; the regulations on organization and operation of national universities; 2) The Minister of Education and Training presides over and coordinates with the Minister of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs to issue the college charters, the secondary school charters; 3) The Minister of Education and Training issues the regulations on general schools with many levels, high schools and junior high schools; primary schools, kindergartens, preschools; Regulations on organization and operation of universities, Regulations on organization and operation of private schools at college, intermediate vocational level, and general education levels; Regulations on organization and operation of private and non-public kindergartens; Regulations on organization and operation of specialized schools; 4) The Minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs promulgates Regulations on organization and operation of private schools at intermediate vocational level and college vocational level.

The “owner” mechanism and the “affiliated” mechanism are affecting the state management model for the higher education system. This mechanism is creating a contradiction between the requirements for autonomy and self-responsibility of higher education institutions and the reality that the “owner” agencies have important decisions on the organization, finance and senior personnel of the “affiliated” institutions and the affiliated institutions must report their important activities to the owner agency.

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One thing worth noting when evaluating the state management apparatus of higher education is that in the functional units of the Ministry of Education and Training, the focal unit to assist the Minister in comprehensively managing universities and colleges has not been clearly identified; the monitoring and supervision of the activities of higher education institutions is not regular and not complete; many schools have not seriously implemented the annual reporting regime to the Ministry of Education and Training; the issued mechanisms and policies have not created motivation and healthy competition among higher education institutions; the division of responsibilities between the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministries, branches and People's Committees of localities in the management of universities and colleges is not clear; the database for managing schools is not complete and synchronous; the coordination mechanism between the Board of Directors, Party Committees and Unions at schools has not been officially and clearly regulated by administrative documents, so the application is still different in schools; The establishment of the School Council as required by the 2005 Education Law has not been implemented in most universities. According to the Conference summarizing the 2009-2010 school year and deploying tasks for the 2010-2011 school year, the number of School Councils established in universities is also insignificant.

Second, since 2003, Decree 85/2003/ND-CP dated July 18, 2003 of the Government stipulating the functions, tasks, powers and organizational structure of the Ministry of Education and Training has stipulated that in the organizational structure of the Ministry of Education and Training, the Department of Testing and Quality Assessment is a specialized agency in charge of testing and quality assessment of education. The Department of Testing and Quality Assessment of Education is responsible for state management of testing and quality assessment and at the same time providing public services on quality assessment of education. This means that the Department of Testing and Quality Assessment

Education has two functions: management function and public service provision function. It can be affirmed that the work of Testing and Quality Assurance of Education is a major content in education and training. Therefore, with the scale of the Department of Testing and Quality Assurance of Education, it is difficult to effectively complete all aspects of its work. The quality assurance of higher education is a major content of accreditation. In the state management of education in many countries, the accreditation management agency is an agency that only has the function of managing accreditation with a team of experts, large managers and professional qualifications. In reality, the Department of Testing and Quality Assurance of Education mainly focuses on the content of testing, while the management of accreditation has not really become a major content of work commensurate with the responsibilities that the State and society expect of this agency.

Another issue that needs to be noted here is whether the Department of Testing and Quality Assurance both performs the management function and provides public services on accreditation is really appropriate in the direction of administrative reform and innovation in state management of education? This can be explained when the conditions for establishing independent accreditation organizations do not allow it, and the social community is not really ready for the formation of organizations that perform such functions. However, we need to soon conduct research, review, and evaluate the reasonableness and effectiveness when the Department of Testing and Quality Assurance performs this function. Because if it focuses on the function of providing public services in quality accreditation, the Department of Testing and Quality Assurance will move away from the function of macro management of quality accreditation. With the current number of officials and civil servants, this will reduce the effectiveness of state management of higher education quality accreditation.

Third , discussing the issue of the state management apparatus for the quality of higher education, an issue that needs to be evaluated is the team of officials and civil servants doing state management work on higher education. The team of officials and civil servants doing state management work on higher education is currently very diverse, including officials and civil servants at the Ministry of Education and Training, ministries, branches, and localities. However, basically, the team of officials and civil servants managing the state on higher education is not yet guaranteed in terms of quantity.

and quality. This has been raised in many forums on state management of higher education. The cadres and civil servants doing state management work related to higher education of the Ministry of Education and Training are now concentrated in a number of specialized departments and bureaus. However, compared to the requirements of managing a large number of higher education institutions nationwide, this team is still small in number. Moreover, this force is dispersed due to having to perform many specialized tasks. Take the example of the Department of Testing and Education Quality Assessment, out of a total of 45 cadres and civil servants of the Department, the majority of cadres and civil servants are responsible for managing testing work. The number of cadres and civil servants managing accreditation work is no more than 10 people, which has really raised the issue that with such a team, state management of accreditation work can be truly effective. Regarding the limited number of cadres and civil servants, it can be explained that the Department of Testing and Quality Assurance only plays a central management role while the overall management is the responsibility of the Ministry. However, even so, with such a large and important task as accreditation, a limited team of cadres and civil servants will not be able to effectively perform their tasks. Along with the limited number, the quality of the cadres and civil servants in state management of higher education is also a major problem. A number of cadres and civil servants have not received proper and in-depth training in education management in general and higher education in particular. This inevitably affects the capacity to advise, develop management policies as well as perform other state management tasks. In ministries, branches and localities, the management of affiliated higher education institutions also has limitations because it mainly focuses on assigning heads of educational institutions. Quality management therefore depends mainly on the capacity and responsibility of this head and the internal efforts of the educational institution.

3.2.4.Inspection, examination and supervision activities in state management of higher education quality

The mechanism for inspection and supervision of the quality assurance of higher education is a link in the quality management process. However, in the current management of higher education quality, the inspection and supervision mechanism is not clear when the subject of inspection and supervision is not clearly defined. The regulations themselves are related to the management of the school.

The country has not yet established a clear, transparent and specific inspection and monitoring mechanism for the quality of education. For example, the inspection and monitoring mechanism for compliance with accreditation standards of educational institutions when self-assessing; the disclosure of information of educational institutions, the transparency and accuracy of assessment and self-assessment reports...

Determining the subject of inspection and supervision of quality assessment is an important issue. With the role of state management, the Ministry of Education and Training is responsible for supervision with the direct function and task of the Department of Testing and Quality Assessment, so supervision will only be effective for higher education institutions, but will not be effective for external assessment expert teams. Because according to current regulations, the Department of Testing and Quality Assessment is the subject that organizes external assessment expert teams, so if we assign the Department of Testing and Quality Assessment to supervise and inspect, will we accept the mechanism of "both playing football and blowing the whistle"? The lack of an effective supervision and inspection mechanism is the condition for higher education institutions to "chase after achievements", trying to present their achievements and minimizing the mention of limitations. At the same time, when there is no close supervision and inspection, the quality assessment process is easily violated and arbitrarily ignored. The conference summarizing 3 years of implementing Directive 296/CT-TTg of the Prime Minister and the action program of the Ministry of Education and Training on innovation in higher education management in the period 2010 - 2012 pointed out the limitations of the current inspection and examination work. That is, the innovation of state management of education still has many errors, violations of regulations are slow to be developed and handled, the conclusions of inspection and examination are not strong enough or the handling after inspection is not resolute and not deterrent enough to end violations. This leads to the fact that the compliance with the law in higher education in many higher education institutions is not strict, leading to many violations such as: determining targets that are not in accordance with reality; continuously enrolling students beyond targets; implementing training cooperation in violation of regulations, regardless of state management regulations on higher education...

3.2.5. International cooperation in ensuring educational quality

Vietnam cooperated with the Netherlands' specialized higher education agency (HBO raad) to implement the project "Establishing 5 quality assurance centers for 5 universities and strengthening capacity at the system level" 2005-2008. The units participating in the project are Thai Nguyen University, Hue University, Da Nang University, Can Tho University, Department of Testing and Quality Assurance of Higher Education, 5 quality assurance centers have been established and put into operation.

The Ministry of Education and Training has organized training sessions on external assessment with the participation of international experts (the training session in February 2006 was conducted by Australian and Indonesian experts; the training session in August 2006 was conducted by two Dutch experts; the training session in April 2007 was conducted by an American expert).

The Department of Testing and Quality Assurance in Education has registered to become a member of the Asia-Pacific Quality Network (APQN). In the past 4 years, APQN has supported 16 domestic officials to attend training courses and seminars in countries in the region to prepare for assessment and accreditation activities in Vietnam. 4 quality assurance centers of 4 universities are members of APQN. The Department of Testing and Quality Assurance in Education has registered to become a member of the International Network of Quality Assurance Organizations in Higher Education (INQAAHE). Currently, there has been cooperation with Australia in finding candidates to register for Australian scholarships to strengthen the team of assessment experts.

3.3. Assessment of the current state management of the quality of higher education in Vietnam

3.3.1. Positive aspects of state management of higher education quality

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State management activities on the quality of higher education in Vietnam in

Over the past years, important results have been achieved, first of all, a shift in state management thinking towards higher education towards quality management with specific steps and in line with practical requirements. State management thinking on higher education has been demonstrated from the perspective of creating an institutional framework,

policies to organize the management apparatus, inspection, examination, and handling of violations. The national quality assurance agency (the Department of Testing and Education Quality Assessment under the Ministry of Education and Training) was established. The vertical system for national quality assurance activities (the Department of Testing and Education Quality Assessment, the quality assurance centers of the two national universities and regional universities, and the quality assurance departments of the schools) was established and gradually perfected. State agencies have initially created an institutional framework for state management of the quality of higher education and applied it in practice. Regulations on standards for quality assessment of universities and university programs are a remarkable achievement in state management of higher education. Regulations on the publication of output standards have created pressure requiring educational institutions to be public and increase their responsibility for training products. The organization of accreditation of a number of higher education institutions shows the efforts and determination of the Ministry of Education and Training in realizing the goal of improving the quality of higher education. Along with the establishment of the higher education quality accreditation agency, the specialized units of the Ministry of Education and Training also focus more on the issue of state management of the quality of higher education, making efforts to find solutions to improve the quality of higher education. A series of measures such as innovating university admissions through the national high school exam, requiring the publication of output standards, issuing warnings about majors that do not ensure training conditions, etc. have created important changes in the quality of higher education.

The autonomy of higher education institutions has been affirmed in the highest document on higher education, the Law on Higher Education has clearly shown that the State has paid special attention to the role of higher education institutions in training quality. The attention to the autonomy and social responsibility of higher education institutions is evidence that the State management of higher education is having positive innovations to effectively manage the quality of higher education.

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3.3.2. Limitations in state management of higher education quality

Besides the positive aspects in state management of education quality

In universities, this activity still has many limitations.

Firstly , the role of state management in the quality of higher education has not been fully demonstrated in its management activities. The state is an agent in the overall factors that can affect the quality of higher education. Without state management, the quality of higher education is difficult to ensure in the conditions where higher education institutions are not fully aware of social responsibility, the pressure between scale and quality. However, if the state intervenes too deeply in higher education institutions, it will also unintentionally eliminate the motivation for creativity and the motivation to improve of higher education institutions. The lack of separation between state management and school management leads to state management activities for state management agencies for higher education being both redundant and insufficient, lacking macro-level solutions, fundamentally based on quality, and having excess micro-management activities for higher education. This has led to Vietnamese higher education being both backward in its heavily subsidized and conservative management style, and also having negative commercialization factors, unhealthy pure business, which has led to the emergence of some counter-cultural features that go against the goal of training and developing people. This is one of the main reasons leading to the phenomenon of chaos in degrees, titles, and training in the wrong major; poor quality training institutions that do not meet the requirements in terms of human resources and facilities are still licensed to train...

Second , the state management system for the quality of higher education still has many shortcomings. State management documents as a basis for managing the quality of higher education have not been truly guaranteed. Regulations on stratification of higher education, regulations on mechanisms, social responsibilities of higher education institutions, decentralization, enhancing autonomy and self-responsibility of higher education institutions are still major issues that need specific regulations in the coming time. Regulations on standards for assessing the quality of universities still lack stratification, the application of assessment standards lacks consistency, requirements on output standards,

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