📋 Tender Overview
The team of accreditors - a key force in ensuring the quality of higher education institutions - is currently facing a shortage and imbalance in structure and region. Although the work of training and issuing cards has made significant progress, gaps in human resources and expertise are still a big challenge to the process of innovating and improving the quality of Vietnamese higher education. It is necessary to continue to strengthen the capacity and balance the team of inspectors. Supplement the force of inspectors: Balance experience and youth. Currently, the whole country has 5 centers allowed by the Ministry of Education and Training to train and foster inspectors, of which 2 have been operating for a long time and 3 have recently been licensed, the total number of currently active inspectors is 544 people. Associate Professor, PhD. Nguyen Phuong Nga, Director of the Center for Educational Quality Accreditation (KDCLGD) - Association of Vietnam Universities and Colleges, said that the current team of accreditors has a relatively reasonable age structure, in which the 41-50 year old group accounts for nearly half (47.98%) of the core force with a lot of practical experience. The 51-70 year old group, considered the mature stage of expertise, accounts for 39.15%, while under 40 years old accounts for only 11.58% and over 70 years old accounts for 1.29%. In terms of academic titles and degrees, 64.9% of accreditors have a doctorate degree or higher (including doctorate, associate professor, professor), qualified to accredit postgraduate training programs. The group with masters degrees accounts for 24.08%, and can only participate in university level accreditation; The remaining 11.03% do not have complete academic data. Associate Professor Phuong Nga said that this team comes from many different positions such as lecturers, specialists, heads or deputy heads of units, but only 26.65% are leaders of educational institutions or equivalent people who are qualified to be assessment team leaders. The low rate causes current delegation leaders to often be overloaded because they have to continuously participate in many inspections. In addition, the regional imbalance is also a significant challenge. Hanoi currently accounts for 44.12% of the total number of inspectors, while Ho Chi Minh City and the southern provinces only reach 26.29%. The large concentration in the Northern region makes inspection work difficult in terms of cost, travel time and organization. The overall picture shows that although the team of inspectors has formed a fairly solid foundation, there are still inadequacies in distribution and expertise. Gaps in training fields Also according to Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Phuong Nga, the shortage of accreditors according to training fields is a serious challenge. There are two fields that have absolutely no auditors: social services and tourism - hotels - sports - personal services. In addition, some fields have only one auditor such as art, veterinary medicine, transportation, security - defense. Meanwhile, many specific training fields such as fine arts, theater - cinema or industrial arts are in great demand for accreditation but there are not enough people to implement it. On the contrary, the group of educational sciences and teacher training has the largest number of accreditors. However, most of the remaining industry groups only have three to six inspectors, which is too low compared to actual needs. From the above data, it can be seen that the main difficulties of the current team of inspectors include: lack of team leaders due to the low rate of leaders with cards; uneven regional distribution; shortage of human resources in many specialized fields; Many accreditors have not achieved enough qualifications to accredit graduate degrees; few opportunities for capacity building and international exchange; State management officials have not directly participated in accreditation, so the gap between policy and practice is still large. Solution: Expand, specialize and link practice Associate Professor, PhD. Nguyen Phuong Nga proposed a series of solutions to overcome the above limitations. First, in terms of human resources policy, it is necessary to encourage leaders of educational institutions to participate in the examination to obtain an auditors card to increase the source of delegation leaders; At the same time, it is required that the head of the quality assurance unit in the university must have an inspector card. Each training industry group at an educational institution should have at least one internal accreditor to meet the need for self-accreditation. Second, we need to focus on developing the team in a sustainable way. Encourage people aged 45-50 to take the test - this is an experienced, stable group with the ability to make long-term contributions. Educational institutions should provide financial support and create conditions for accreditors to study for a doctorate or strive to achieve the title of associate professor or professor. Third, in terms of professional capacity, it is necessary to organize annual seminars, discussions, and workshops to exchange experiences among domestic accreditors; At the same time, expand international cooperation, creating opportunities for Vietnamese auditors to participate as observers or auditors at foreign organizations. Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Phuong Nga emphasized the importance of connection between policy makers and implementers. She proposed that the Ministry of Education and Training should create conditions for officials and experts to directly take the exam to obtain an inspector card and participate in external assessment activities. Only with practical experience, the lNew policy makers have a deeper understanding of the difficulties and challenges of inspection activities - thereby making more appropriate, feasible and practical policy decisions. Improving the quality of accreditation is an urge
