Current status of the development of the undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs at the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics

ASSOC. PROF., DR. HOANG ANH
Department of Organization and Personnel
Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics

1. Introduction

Training at the undergraduate, master’s and doctoral levels is an important aspect in educating and fostering activities of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics (the Academy). Over the years, this work has achieved significant results, positively contributing to providing high-quality human resources for the country’s political system and building and developing the Academy’s staff.

However, in the current context, with the need for comprehensive standardization , and the increasing competition, the Academy’s undergraduate, master’s and doctoral training programs are facing certain difficulties.

This situation is attributed to various reasons, but one of the prominent causes is that the development of the Academy’s undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral training programs are often slow and lack uniformity.

This article provides the preliminary assessments of the survey results on the development of training programs at undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs at the Academy.

2. Survey results based on core contents of undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs

The research team developed a questionnaire, with 19 criteria corresponding to 19 core contents of the development of undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs at the Academy.

The units surveyed include:

- Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics

- Academy of Politics Region I

- Academy of Journalism and Communication

These are institutions that provide undergraduate and postgraduate training in the system of Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics (particularly, the Academy of Journalism and Communication is listed as one of the universities being developed into a Key National University).

Total surveys responded receiving responses: 180 votes.

Specific results are as follows:

The results show that the percentage of respondents who agreed or completely agreed with the criteria varied, ranging from 79.3% to 96.6%. Most of the criteria achieved the rate of agreement or complete agreement rate between 86% to 88%.

The results obtained after surveying the opinions of management staff and lecturers on “The training program approved by the evaluation council” accounted for the highest rate of agreement or complete agreement, with 96.6%. Thus, when developing undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral training programs, the Academy usually evaluates the programs to ensure quality. This practice needs to continue in the future.

The criterion “Programs are benchmarked against those of domestic and international institutions while being developed” ranked second in terms of the proportion of respondents agreeing or completely agreeing, at 92%. This reflects the common situation in which undergraduate and postgraduate training are the main and fundamental activities in all higher education institutions. Many domestic and foreign higher training institutions offer similar programs, leading to fierce competition in recruitment and attraction of students. To develop a high-quality and reputable training program, educational institutions must refer to the programs of other institutions. Furthermore, this is a mandatory requirement of the Ministry of Education and Training for schools when developing training programs.

If the training in political theoretical and professional development for leadership and management staff at all levels according to job titles and position are unique programs of of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, then for undergraduate and postgraduate training, the Academy must comply with the regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training like other higher education institutions in the national education system across the country.

Undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs are progressively higher and more specialized levels of each field. If undergraduate programs provide the broad foundation with a large number of students, then master’s and doctoral programs are highly selective with fewer learners. Designing programs for the same discipline at different educational levels requires seamless transitions between these levels. This is an important requirement that every educational institution must meet. Seamless transitions are reflected in the consistency of course content, which is elevated at higher educational levels. However, regarding the criterion “The course syllabi are integrated across undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs”, the number of respondents answering with agreement or complete agreement was the lowest, at 79.3%, and the number of respondents that only partial agreed accounted for the highest percentage, at 18.7%. This result suggests that the Academy needs to have a plan to review the overall undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs to adjust and ensure the highest level of integration between these educational levels.

The highest disagreement rate was for the statement “The Academy has regulations on the process of program development according to a specific, unified plan within the Academy system,” with 4.6% not agreeing or completely disagreeing. Currently, the Academy offers 1 undergraduate program, 18 masters’ programs, and 15 doctoral programs. In 2021, 2 undergraduate programs in political science were recently reviewed and adjusted. Besides the two newly opened programs, the master’s in cultural management in 2020 and the doctoral program in human rights law in 2021, master’s and doctoral programs have not been comprehensively reviewed in the last 8 years.

In 2022, when the set of documents guiding the development of training and fostering programs under Project 979 of the Academy were approved, the documents on procedures and instructions for developing training programs at the Academy were basically completed.

Up to now, the Academy has met the necessary conditions to methodically and scientifically adjust, supplement, and build new training and development programs, including training programs at the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels.

In the process of developing training programs, theoretically, programs will be periodically reviewed, evaluated and adjusted with the review cycle at least matching the program’s training duration. For the statement “Every 4 years, programs are evaluated for quality and completion” it received the second lowest percentage of respondents agreeing or completely agreeing, at 84.7%. This result is consistent with what is happening at the Academy. While comprehensive program evaluations are elaborate, involving multiple units, significant costs, and time, framework evaluations are much simpler. However, the Academy has not adequately emphasized both evaluation forms. In the future, relevant agencies and units need to advise the Academy’s Board of Directors to promptly implement evaluations to continuously improve the Academy’s training programs and ensure all relevant information is made public and transparent. This approach is also a way for the Academy to show accountability to students, employers, and society.

The criterion “There is a weighting table between program outcome standards and subject outcome standards” also had the third lowest percentage of respondents agreeing or complete agreeing, at 84%. The study outcomes of each subject must necessarily be a part of the program’s overall learning outcomes; Any course that does not deliver the program’s study outcomes must be eliminated due to its irrelevance.

Recently, the Academy has used many forms of exams and assessments to evaluate students’ learning outcomes. However, due to the prolonged Covid-19 pandemic, in 2021 and 2022 most classes were held online using Microsoft Teams. Under such conditions, the Academy only used essay assignments for the courses in both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. Consequently, the survey results reflect a higher proportion of people who disagree or strongly disagree with 4.1%, regarding the statement “The method of assessing study outcomes ensures validity, reliability, and fairness”.

3. Survey results on “Developing goals and outcome standards undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs at the Academy”

To understand the current status of setting goals and outcome standards for undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs, the research team selected 14 criteria corresponding to 14 related issues.

Specific results are as follows:

Looking at the table above as a whole, the survey results vary among the criteria regarding the rates of agreement, partial agreement, and disagreement.

The criterion with the highest percentage of respondents agreeing or completely agreeing is criterion 3 which states, “The goals of the training programs are consistent with the functions and tasks of the Academy”, at 91.4%. This is also the criterion with the lowest percentage of respondents who only partially agree, at 6%. Thus, the Academy’s functions and tasks are clearly defined, highly stable and firmly understood by the Academy staff and lecturers. This is an important basis for both building and evaluating the training program goals.

The criterion with the second highest percentage of respondents agreeing or completely agreeing among the 14 criteria is “Teaching activities are designed appropriately to achieve output standards”, at 90%.

Criterion 6 “Output standards meet the requirements of stakeholders” is the criterion with the lowest percentage of respondents agreeing or completely agreeing, at 76%. Additionally, the number of respondents who disagree or strongly disagree with this criterion accounts for the highest proportion, at 4.7%. Thus, it is necessary for the Academy to reconsider the development of output standards for undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs and pay more attention to collecting opinions from relevant subjects when developing output standards.

The criteria “Teaching activities are designed appropriately to achieve outcome standards”, “Learning activities are designed in accordance with outcome standards” and “Evaluation of students’ study outcomes are designed in accordance with the achievement level of output standards” had rates of agreement and complete agreement of 90%, 84.6%, and 86% respectively. This suggests that the learning activities and the assessment of student learning outcomes were not highly rated by respondents, even though the Academy’s current training approach emphasizes a learner-centered model.

4. Conclusion and recommendations

It can be stated that activities related to output standards have not been highly rated. The main reason is that students’ study outcomes are not fully understood or perceived in practice. In the future, the Academy needs to have a plan to raise awareness among officials and lecturers and systematically and professionally develop output standards for undergraduate and postgraduate training programs.

Based on the survey results, some suggestions are proposed:

- Developing undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs should adhere closely to general regulations and be consistent with national standards while also reflecting the specific conditions of the Academy.

- Developing undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs should be linked with innovative training methods. Given the high competitiveness in undergraduate and postgraduate education, the content and teaching methods should be regularly updated to be distinctive, modern, and integrated. Emphasizing practical applications, skill development, and encourage independent thinking. Using multimedia in the preparation of textbooks and learning materials.

- Building a contingent of experts to develop undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs, with a core of training and management staff. This team will connect resources, including experts from reputable higher education institutions, to advise and directly organize the program development.

- Organizing periodic training workshops on developing for undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs for lecturers training management staff. Training materials should be updated, supplemented, and adjusted annually.

Organizing and evaluations of the results of undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs every 3-5 years.

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Received: February 29, 2024; Revised: March 16, 2024; Approved for publication: March 22, 2024.

l References:

1. Hoang Anh: “Developing the program and organizing the implementation of the training and fostering process at the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics”, Documents on fostering political theory teaching methods, vol.1, Some general issues about teaching political theory, Political Theory Publishing House, Hanoi, 2021, pp.99-127.

2. Ministry of Education and Training: Instructions for developing and publishing output standards, Instruction No.2196 /BGDDT-GDDH dated April 22, 2010.

3. Nguyen Duc Chinh, Tran Huu Hoan: Management and development of school education programs, Vietnam Education Publishing House, Hanoi, 2020.

4. Nguyen Vu Bich Hien, Nguyen Thi Thu Hang, Pham Ngoc Long: Program development and training program evaluation, University of Education Publishing House, Hanoi, 2015.

5. Ho Trong Hoai, Tran Thi Tu Anh: Building output standards for training programs at Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, Political Theory Journal, No.12, 2017.

6. Methods of managing and training cadres and civil servants, Political Theory Publishing House, Hanoi, 2016.