Higher Education in Vietnam

“According to Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training [MOET], to the end of 2005 (MOET, February 2006), there are 230 universities and colleges which are public and non-public (terms used by MOET). State research institutions number 300 (Tran et al, 1995) all of which are public. Vietnam’s universities, colleges and research institutions are responsible to various ministries which means that they work under direct supervision of their ministry or provincial authorities in terms of their mission and financial support, for example the University of Medicines reports to the Ministry of Health. However, the curriculum of each is subject to approval by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET).

In recent years, the higher education system in Vietnam has undergone many positive changes. In relation to access and equity in higher education, policy making bodies such as the Communist Party of Vietnam, and the MOET have launched several new policies and trialed various models to both modernize the higher education system and respond to the needs of access and equity in higher education. International agencies, foreign donors, as well as private enterprise, have also contributed a great deal to increasing access and equity to higher education in Vietnam and the re-organization of the higher education system structure and capacity building for universities/colleges for the future.”

My current publication

Dear Guys,

My paper on Vocational Education programme in Thailand is recently published in the International Journal of Management in Education. You can follow the link here to get an abstract of the paper

Education is back

I disappeared from the screen for a long while due to my work commitment. Will be back online shortly.

Thai Studies Conference in Bangkok

I have just returned to Melbourne from Thailand and Singapore. The conference I attended was quite mediocre in the sense that there wasn't any paper that striked my thought in education. The best thing about this conference was the fact that I could presented my project on educational leadership in the Thai context to a tiny group of audiences. I really enjy listening to the comments from some of them. Questions regarding the cultural context and organisational behaviour in the Thai schools was really popular.

Of all scholars I met, Dr. Irving Chan Johnson from the National University of Singapore was one of the most impressive in his comments on the cultural context, ways of living, and the Thai. I probably

Changing from School Manager to School Leader!

Schools have traditionally been managed by a bureaucratic management style principal. In this method principals rely on a rational set of structuring guidelines, such as rules and procedures, hierarchy, and a clear division of labor (Allen 1998). Principals using this style receive lots of credit for an efficiently run school. Over time this style of management eventually backfires as creative teachers and students become unsettled. These types of principals tend to be control freaks who find it difficult to let go of the detail and are particularly threatened by the idea of empowering other leaders for fear of diminishing their own power base. These principals soon forget that schools exist for students and not for administrators (Prideaux, 2001). As new decision making models emerge with research backing their success, the role of the principal begins to change.

Principals are no longer strictly managers; they are expected to be leaders. Leaders that can take their school to a higher level of academic achievement, where all students are successful learners and all teachers engage their students in learning. To become such a leader, principals need to leave behind their bureaucratic management styles and redefine themselves as a moral leader. Principals that are leaders not just managers will be able to move their school forward. These new principals allow teachers to be leaders in developing better curriculums to reach the needs of all students. For a principal to maintain this type of leadership, he/she will need to learn how to serve his staff not just manage it.

Principals are beginning to value the important role that teachers play in the success of their school. Recognizing their value, principals are beginning to work with teachers to achieve goals that will contribute to the schools success. Principals are looking for a leadership style that welcomes the cooperation of others and values their input. One such leadership style is that of a servant leader. In servant leadership one serves the needs of their staff (Sergiovanni, 2000). By serving one's staff instead of serving one's own needs, a principal is able to create change within the school. Principals can practice servant leadership in the three ways that Sergiovanni (2000) describes: purposing, empowerment, and leadership by outrage.

--to be continued --

Happy New Year 2008

I wish you all the very happy year and enjoy managing your education!

Education Education, and Education!

Nearly 30 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. declared that the challenge for schools is "to teach so well that family background is no longer an issue." By increasing the rewards for education, globalization has added urgency to King's argument, but globalization paradoxically creates a temptation to ignore him, too. By driving down the cost of tradable goods such as cars and DVD players, it leaves untradable ones such as education looking expensive. There's a tendency for policymakers to say that education spending is growing a bit faster than inflation -- isn't that generous enough? But inflation is low partly because globalization brings us goods from cheap foreign suppliers. The economic challenge posed by those cheap foreign suppliers is precisely the reason we should invest more in our children.