Operational Solutions Group: Building a Master Plan for

145

allows to solve problems quickly and effectively, thereby, the

Foreign partners will bring, set and give us real access to international standards right in our environment, and they are also responsible for helping us meet those standards. The cooperation process itself also allows us to solve a series of problems regarding degree recognition, credit transfer, curriculum systems, documents, languages, etc. In addition, foreign training cooperation programs will be an ideal environment for teacher training. Potential teachers, who are well-trained abroad, will have the opportunity to work in a favorable environment to perfect and develop their knowledge, skills and advanced working style. International training cooperation programs are now like incubators for a

future international teaching staff, and this is also a good land

Maybe you are interested!

to attract internationally qualified lecturers to work in Vietnam. Because here they can develop their abilities and have the conditions to be paid appropriately, something that current domestic training programs cannot do.

International training cooperation, more specifically, organizing "On-site study abroad" programs will be the path that economic universities need to take to reach international level most effectively.

In addition, a significant meaning of the “on-site study abroad” programs or foreign training cooperation programs is that they will help attract social investment back to invest in the education system in Vietnam, instead of flowing abroad through self-funded study abroad programs. And, with an optimistic view, it will not only be a financial investment, but also a return of intellectual resources in the classes of students and young people currently studying and working abroad, who are also looking back to the country to seek opportunities that can both help them contribute and help them develop.

3.2. Solutions

To enhance the exploitation of the benefits of international training programs as an effective solution for training and developing teaching staff in

146

Economic universities need a strategy to use and develop these programs to serve the above goals.

The proposed solutions include strategic solutions for managing the use of international training programs and operational solutions to effectively exploit international training programs.

3.2.1. Operational solution group: develop a master plan on

Training and developing teaching staff through international training programs.

Based on the recognition of the benefits of international training programs, a comprehensive plan to exploit these benefits will be necessary and useful for schools.

In fact, in current schools, the exploitation of benefits of training and developing teaching staff through international training programs is carried out within the scope of each program or project. The use of lecturers in these programs is mainly to achieve the goals of the program/project, without being linked and integrated into the overall plan for training and developing lecturers in the whole school.

Developing a master plan is important in identifying the participants and goals of participation in the programs, attracting the interest of individuals and units in the school in exploiting the benefits.

Training and development of staff through international training programs. At the same time, the development of a master plan will force schools to identify policies to support training and development of staff through international training programs, taking advantage of these programs to improve the quality of teaching staff, thereby improving the quality of their training, towards international standards.

With similar characteristics of the teaching staff as well as teaching activities in economic universities, a basic framework of the overall plan for training and developing the teaching staff for the schools can be given as follows:

3.2.1.1. Determine the objectives of the master plan:

Maximize the participation of lecturers in international training programs in an appropriate manner to promote the benefits of international training programs for lecturers, including:

147

(i) Improve professional skills: foreign languages, specialized knowledge; teaching method skills; research and consulting skills

(ii) Improve professionalism, love for the job and cultivate valuable qualities

(iii) Raising awareness of the role of lecturers in education and in nation building

3.2.1.2. Design diverse activities for training and fostering lecturers

The above goals can be achieved through diverse activities in international training programs, including the following basic contents:

(i) The school needs to have a mechanism to provide comprehensive information about learning and working opportunities in international training programs, including teaching and teaching assistant activities in the programs, guiding thematic topics, theses, scientific research, and at the same time encourage lecturers to actively and proactively participate in the above activities. The most effective way to encourage participation is to create motivation for lecturers when participating in these activities. In fact, the remuneration for lecturers participating in teaching and teaching assistant activities in international training programs is higher than the unit price paid for other teaching activities in the school. However, if that alone is not attractive enough because the participation time is short and the preparation process requires a lot of effort and when implementing it, there is great pressure. Therefore, it is important to make lecturers aware of the objective requirements of improving their qualifications according to international standards, from which they will have the internal motivation to improve themselves, then they will see the activities as important.

activities in the HTĐTQT programs as opportunities for learning and self-development and will actively participate in such activities.

(ii) Monitor and develop a comprehensive plan for workshop and seminar activities, utilizing training majors and resources of international training programs. Lecturers can be presenters or participants in programs led by foreign lecturers or even

148

even students/former students report. This method allows for increased exchange between domestic and foreign lecturers and students in terms of expertise: introducing and updating new issues, or raising practical issues. Strengthening these relationships is extremely important for individual lecturers and for the school in general. Exchanges in workshops and seminars can lead to consulting research topics for the school, both generating income and allowing teachers to truly penetrate into reality;

(iii) Develop new training programs with the aim of creating a “training ground”, creating an environment that allows lecturers to practice and implement issues acquired through international training programs. These training programs can be designed in the form of regular activities, or by topic, can be integrated into existing activities, or can be completely new, creating a “playground” for lecturers to implement and test issues.

new topics. Those new issues can be new knowledge, methods, new skills... Participants can be regular learners or can be lecturers, staff members in the school when the goal of these activities is to update and disseminate knowledge to a large number of lecturers and staff of the school. The purpose of these programs needs to be thoroughly understood as serving the training and development of lecturers. With this approach, the elements learned from international training programs can be partially applied and the widespread benefits of international training programs can also be realized: Short-term training programs, specialized training courses... will be suitable forms for this activity. In these training programs, lecturers can partially apply the knowledge and skills learned from the HTĐTQT programs to their training courses, and can work together with other lecturers who have not or have never participated in the HTĐTQT programs, and thereby spread the benefits of the program more widely. Ideally, it would be possible to establish

149

a department in the school including representatives of international training programs, specializing in building and implementing training programs, new activities with the nature of an "incubator" for new elements, new capacities in the teaching staff. This department will also play a role in testing and evaluating new directions of the school so that the goals of individual and school development are achieved in harmony, towards international standards;

(iv) Developing internship programs at home and abroad: so that lecturers can access, acquire and bring back to the school “new sources of energy”. This is a very useful activity that has not been exploited properly.

It is possible to exploit relationships with foreign partners through finding opportunities for our lecturers to do internships at partner schools. Lecturers who do internships can participate in many different activities, from attending lectures in classes of interest, participating in research activities with foreign professors, participating in teaching assistantships, teaching... The participation of lecturers in internship programs at partner schools will be a valuable and effective opportunity for learning and career development. When lecturers complete their Master's or Doctoral training programs, if they have the opportunity to intern at foreign universities, they can continue to study subjects related to their major (usually in the form of attending lectures or participating in teaching assistantships, teaching part of the course) without any fees and without the pressure of exams as during their studies, thus allowing lecturers to fully focus on thinking about the applicability of the subject, learning materials, approaches... in the Vietnamese environment. This type of internship program will create conditions for lecturers to access foreign education in a foreign environment and give lecturers an open perspective, access and absorb advanced educational philosophies. When they return to work in international training programs in Vietnam, having the experience of teaching and working directly abroad like this also gives lecturers valuable confidence from both

150

from the outside, students look inward and also from the inside of the lecturers themselves, creating the premise for them to rise up to replace foreign lecturers in international training programs.

Internships abroad may involve travel expenses, and partner schools may provide accommodation or subsidize living expenses but will not cover travel expenses. Schools should have a policy of full or partial support to take advantage of these highly effective training opportunities.

In addition, internships at foreign organizations and enterprises in Vietnam are also good opportunities for lecturers, especially young lecturers. They are often students who are retained as lecturers, lacking practical knowledge. A regime of “sabatical leave” from 4 to 6 months or 1 year, taking time off from school to work at outside organizations and enterprises (where all criteria are suitable for the training goals of lecturers) should be applied, creating conditions for lecturers to penetrate into reality to “recharge” more experience, knowledge, life skills, and new relationships, contributing to enriching the school, and at the same time will be extremely useful and necessary for teaching work in the school. If the school has a general policy on using the measure of "internship" or "training vacation" in the training and development of the teaching staff, it is completely feasible to arrange for lecturers in faculties and departments to have the opportunity to take "training vacations" in turn.

(v) To complete the process of training and fostering lecturers, it is also necessary to prepare for a "playground" where well-trained lecturers will be able to demonstrate and develop their full potential. This could be a new training program of a Vietnamese university at the international level or a link with the HTĐTQT program or international training programs, allowing the completion of the training technology transfer process.

The HTĐTQT programs themselves are not the goal of the operation.

of Vietnamese universities. The ultimate goal of universities

The goal of Vietnamese higher education is to have its own international training programs, which can be demonstrated by becoming an alternative to studying abroad for Vietnamese students or attracting international students to study. The “twin program” model can be an effective solution for using international training programs to promote the process of developing teaching staff to build Vietnamese programs at an international level.

3.2.1.3. Group lecturers to have appropriate training and development plans

To be able to build and implement the above master plan, it is necessary to point out

groups of lecturers with their own characteristics to have appropriate plans for use and training, so as to maximize the capacity and strengths of each individual, while ensuring the development of each individual contributes to the development of the whole school.

In general, teachers participating in international programs are required to have the same general conditions as any other program, which means they must have appropriate expertise, practical experience, and satisfactory teaching skills. All of these factors need to be continuously cultivated and improved to improve the quality of teaching.

In terms of expertise, lecturers of economic schools can be divided into two large groups: teachers of Economics and teachers of Business Administration.

which is further divided into smaller groups according to specialization.

In addition, a unique feature of international training programs is the ability to teach in a foreign language, with English being the top priority. With the orientation towards building internationally recognized international training programs, another indispensable criterion is the ability of teachers to conduct research towards international standards, resulting in articles.

published in prestigious international journals. Training and research are two basic areas of activity to evaluate a university. Thus, two specific criteria that need to be considered for the number of teachers who can participate in the international training activities of the school are:

(i) Ability to teach in English

(ii) Research capacity towards international level: having articles published in international journals, papers at international conferences

Each of the two criteria above plays an important role in planning teacher training and development.

According to the first criterion - Ability to teach directly in a foreign language: even for teachers who have been trained in international programs and are quite fluent in using foreign languages in transactions, document reference, and report writing, in reality, only a few teachers are able to teach directly in English, some will need further training and some will not be able to teach directly in English. Thus, it can be divided into 3 groups: not able to teach in English; able and willing to teach directly in English; others, often in the younger generation, have the potential ability, this group will demonstrate their true ability after a while, adding to the two groups above.

Similarly, considering the second criterion - the ability to conduct research at an international level, it can be seen as follows: in principle, all teachers have the ability to conduct research and need to conduct research activities. However, to be able to conduct research at an international level requires a great deal of personal effort from each teacher. In fact, there are some teachers who will not follow this orientation. Therefore, considering this criterion, teachers can also be divided into 3 groups: without an orientation to research at an international level; with an orientation and at an international level.

Some have achieved international level in research (having articles published in prestigious foreign journals); the third group does not have a clear direction, is still in the potential form and will add strength to one of the two groups above.

Looking at it as a whole, regardless of their field of expertise, teachers who can participate in international training activities can be classified into the following basic groups (Figure 3.1):

So basically there will be 5 groups of teachers A, B, C, D, E

Group A : group includes teachers who are usually older, experienced, have good professional work, but are limited in teaching directly in English and will not have the conditions to conduct research.

Comment