Living and studying space a major concern for public universities

According to a recent study, public universities and colleges of Vietnam are short on accommodation and facilities for students.

There are 157,429 accommodation spaces available for 855,337 students at 196 public universities and colleges.

Many universities do not have enough seats for students in lecture halls

Additionally, 84.2% of these schools have very poorly equipped health care stations. Even many of them do not have libraries for students to study.

This information was provided by the Department of School Infrastructure and Equipment under the Ministry of Education & Training at the conference on assessing the current state of facilities and educational equipment of public universities and colleges on October 25.

According to the report, the average area for each student currently is ranging from 55 to 85 square metres of land but Hanoi University of Law can provide only 0.67 square metres for each student and National University of Civil Engineering can provide 0.84 square metres for each student.

Meanwhile the average area of studying is only 3.6 square metres for each student. This number is much lower than the standard area of 6 square metres.

At the 196 universities and colleges, 5,572 laboratories and 442 experimental factories were inspected. Most of these schools have not set up regulations on organisation and operations at these laboratories. Only 15.5% of them can meet requirements of scientific research and 22.5% of them are well-equipped.

According to the assessment of the department’s leaders, these laboratories can meet 40% of the demand of the public universities and colleges.

In terms of average area of libraries at all of these schools, 21.1 students have one seat in a library. 24 out of the 196 schools do not have traditional libraries. 119 schools do not have e-libraries.

38.9% of the 172 inspected libraries have applied existing standards for libraries in Vietnam or in the world. Only 34.3% of these 172 libraries are applying management software.

However, according to leaders of many universities in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, it’s difficult to expand libraries because space at universities is limited.

According to leaders of the Ministry of Education & Training, from now until 2015, another 12,000 hectares of land and VND827 trillion ($42,155,400,000) is needed to expand existing public universities and colleges and ensure the average area of 55 square metres for each student.

They also affirmed that it’s a substantial amount of money. Although the state budget spent on education development can continue to increase in the next few years, it cannot meet this estimated number.

As part of the event, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan directed finding a breakthrough in management. He said that the Ministry of Construction was finalising the planning of universities and colleges in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Ministries of Environment & Natural Resources, Finance, Planning & Investing are also coordinating together to plan land for university education. There will be special investment portfolios for major universities.

On October 22, Nhan had a meeting with relevant ministries and agencies to discuss solutions to issues of using land for university education.

According to reports of ministries and agencies, currently, most universities and colleges are being positioned in big cities, especially in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. They are not planned to remove to outskirts areas. Hanoi now has 96 universities and many of them are located in centres of districts such as Ba Dinh, Hoan Kiem, Hai Ba Trung or Dong Da. 1,130 hectare of land in Hoa Lac area has been designated for Vietnam National University, Hanoi but there isn’t any member school removed there. Additionally, public universities are given a large land fund but its ineffective management has led to a big waste.

Nhan assigned the Ministry of Education and Training to issue standards for facilities and students. In January 2011, these standards will be announced.

Ministries of Finance and Environment & Natural Resources were assigned to propose solutions to have clean lands for university education.