Posts Tagged ‘standards’
Vietnam’s IT industry yet to satisfy regional advanced standards
In Uncategorized on November 6, 2010 at 7:19 amUniversities told to lift their standards
In Uncategorized on October 13, 2010 at 3:52 amDeputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan yesterday urged universities to continue improving the standard of teachers so that those at universities had higher qualifications than bachelor degrees.
He was speaking at a meeting of the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) held yesterday in Ha Noi to review the 2009-10 academic year and launch plans for the new academic year.
The meeting also discussed the implementation of the Government’s Instruction 296 on renewing university education management for the 2010-12 period and the National Assembly’s Resolution 869 on setting up a team to supervise the adherence to regulations on establishing and investing in universities and improved teaching quality.
Regarding Instruction 296, 311 universities and colleges nationwide, accounting for 76.4 per cent of the total, had completed their report on the implementation of the instruction.
Meanwhile, supervision teams had carried out examinations in 13 ministries and sectors and 51 educational institutions.
Tran Thi Ha, director of MOET’s Department of Higher Education, said there remained many weaknesses in tertiary education management. These included a lack of proper legal documents on higher education management, qualified teachers and poor infrastructure.
In addition, many students still lacked adequate vocational skills to employ after graduating.
Some universities and colleges did not follow the compulsory regulations on reporting to MOET, with 39 per cent of the country’s universities and colleges having failed to file a report.
Participants at the meeting also raised the issue of universities co-operating with foreign educational institution without asking for permission from MOET.
Nguyen Xuan Vang, director of the International Training Department, said that the ministry would issue new regulations to ensure stricter control.
Deputy Prime Minister Nhan asked universities and colleges to foster training based on the demand of the market, and their current capacity to deliver education in certain core subjects. He said schools also needed to send teachers abroad for training.
Nhan suggested MOET carry out trial check with 30 universities and colleges in three specific regions of the country to report back to the National Assembly in its coming session.
He asked MOET to continue drafting the Law on Higher Education, which is expected to be submitted to the NA in July next year.
Source: VNS
Source: QDND
Education sector told to improve standards through management
In Uncategorized on July 31, 2010 at 7:18 pmVietnam’s education sector must improve its management if it is to raise standards, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan said on July 29 at a meeting in Hanoi.
In the 2009-10 academic year, about 92.57 percent of high school students passed the graduation exam – 8.97 percent higher than in the previous school year.
Nhan attributed the improvement to management programmes that had been introduced that academic year.
High school principals around the country underwent re-training courses that focused on leadership, while education managers learned how to adapt to being financially independent.
They were also told how to best promote their school’s achievements in terms of training quality, finance, infrastructure facilities and teaching/learning conditions.
Nhan said the Ministry of Education and Training should continue to implement programmes designed to boost educational management.
He said the focus should be on implementing new programmes for pre-schools that included a combination of different teaching methods, the application of e-learning, extra-training for students who were performing badly and boosting the management skills of staff.
Nhan also urged the ministry to work with provincial authorities on developing schools for gifted students to provide high-quality human resources for the country’s development, and said greater emphasis should be placed on foreign-language learning.
Education and Training Deputy Minister Nguyen Vinh Hien said at the meeting that up to 96.4 percent of pre-schools now apply information technology, while 82.8 percent are connected to the internet.
Secondary schools now meet universal standards, while more than half of all pre-schools have adopted educational programmes.
However, despite improvements in education, Hien said schools had yet to meet national development demand. He also said there was a teacher shortage, a lack of infrastructure, a high drop-out rate and too much emphasis placed on passive learning.
Source: VNA
Source: QDND
Living standards of ethnic people improved
In Uncategorized on May 14, 2010 at 4:57 pmPANO – Living standards of ethnic minority people in the central highlands province of Dac Lac have much improved with every passing year.
After the war, Dac Lac provincial authorities faced a lot of difficulties in stabilising living standards of local ethnic people.
Thanks to the Party and the State’s policies, the province has launched many programs to build infrastructure and create favourable conditions for ethnic people to develop their economy.
These ethnic people have been provided with accommodations, land to develop their farming and other essential facilities for their living.
During the last decade, the province invested more than VND10,000 billion to build and upgrade the infrastructure including road systems, irrigation works and public facilities. More schools and hospitals have been built for ethnic people and many of them have been trained and became members of local authorities.
The number of poor households in the province has been decreased every year.
At present many programs are under way to help local ethnic people to develop their economy and improve their living standards.
Translated by Duy Minh
Source: QDND
Quality standards imposed on salt imports
In Uncategorized on May 9, 2010 at 4:52 pmThe Prime Minister has assigned the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Finance to work on quality, safety and hygiene standards for imported salt.
He also asked the above ministries to curb cheating on the importation of salt, and to propose ways of adjusting import taxes on salt that is imported beyond the legal set quota.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade set the 2010 national customs quota for salt imports at 260,000 tonnes. To date, the Ministry of Finance has allocated quotas totalling 140,000 tonnes to different businesses.
Source: VOV
Source: QDND
Living standards become top priority
In Uncategorized on May 9, 2010 at 4:50 pmMacro-economic stability should be made a top priority because it was not only a foundation for reasonable growth this year, but also a prerequisite for long-term sustainable development, policy makers said at a National Assembly Standing Committee meeting yesterday.
Chairman of the National Assembly’s Economics Committee Ha Van Hien pointed out new challenges that the country was facing while striving to reach the target of socio-economic development this year.
Consumer price indices in the first months of the year were high, making it hard for the Government to keep inflation under the target of 7 per cent, Hien said. The price of building materials in February and April rose by 1.75 and 2.51 per cent, respectively, while those of food and drink services in February surged by 3.09 per cent.
Enterprises were finding it difficult to access credit with interest rates as high as 17-18 per cent which would affect growth for the rest of the year, he added.
The circle “Trade deficit-dong devaluation-inflation-pressure to adjust foreign exchange” would continue challenging macro-economic stabilisation, he worried.
To deal with the challenges, Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc highlighted measures to be taken from now until the end of the year. The measures included reining in inflation and ensuring the safety of banking and financial systems.
The Government would also encourage people and enterprises to practise thrift in production and consumption to curb inflation, Phuc added.
Dinh Trinh Hai, deputy head of the NA’s Finance-Budget Committee, said that in 2009, the Government had budgeted for State spending of VND389.9 trillion (US$20.5 billion), but in fact, the actual figure was 8.5 per cent higher.
In April, the total expenditure of the State was VND175 trillion ($9.2 billion), 30 per cent higher than budgeted for.
Hai said that most of the actual figures were higher than those reported to the National Assembly, which would negatively reflect on the assembly’s decisions and policies.
Sharing the same point, chairman of the NA Ombudsmen Committee Tran The Vuong said that the differences between budgets and actual figures were too large. He asked the Government to tackle forecasting errors.
“There are some Government policies that lead to increased expenditure because when the Government makes its estimates, it does not take into account problems that could arise related to them.”
“For example, the Government’s decision to increase compensation for farmers who lose their land makes province leaders confused because if they follow the decision, they cannot attract investors due to higher costs they have to pay,” Vuong said.
Chairman of the NA’s Council of Ethnic Minorities Ksor Phuoc stressed his concerns over estimates and statistical reports.
Phuoc said that this year, the country would hold many festivals which would cost a lot of money.
He suggested that the Government compile detailed reports on the expense of festivals from provincial to central levels. “Whether it is waste or not, it depends on us.”
Hien said that weakness in issuing forecasts would influence decisions to deal with State overspending, on plans for following years and other areas.
Also on the same day, Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem and Party Central Committee Secretary Ha Thi Khiet held separate meetings with voters of Da Nang City and Tuyen Quang Province in preparation for the 7th plenum of the 12th National Assembly.
Source: VNSSource: QDND
Ministry, universities differ on higher education standards
In Vietnam Education on November 20, 2009 at 8:35 amThe Ministry of Education and Training should change its approach to higher education and make big changes at universities, said Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan at an online conference on higher education for the 2009-2010 academic year.
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| Graduates from the HCM City University of Pedagogy. The Ministry of Education and Training will make big changes in the 2009-2010 academic year, Deputy PM pledged. |
Mr. Nhan, who is also the education minister, said that in line with this year’s academic theme: “Renovating Management, Raising Education Quality and Focusing on Meeting Demands of Society,” universities and colleges would participate in evaluating the ministry’s management.
They would also help create improved standards and launch new training programs, he added.
“Because of this renovation, universities will not be peaceful this year,” said Mr. Nhan.
However, the ministry presented only general measures for such an overhaul while failing to explain the specifics of how to revamp the system, which has been increasingly criticized by the public.
Regarding the quality of new schools in the country, a report presented by the ministry at the conference said that 20 percent of the schools fail to meet standards for infrastructure, lecturers, investment capital, and curricula. In addition, there are no formal regulations for launching training programs or recruiting students, the ministry said.
In addition, penalties for universities which fail to meet standards are not strong enough.
Evaluating the quality of the country’s higher education, the ministry said, “In reality, the ministry cannot control the quality of higher education due to a lack of standards. There is not yet a body in charge of higher education quality.
“The ministry has not had annual reports to evaluate the … quality of universities or the entire higher education system,” the ministry outlined in the report.
Responding to the ministry, school rectors asked that higher education institutes be allowed to set their own tuition and fees.
Ph.D. Thai Ba Can, the rector of the HCM City University of Technical Education said that universities need regulations allowing them to decide tuition fees and expenses by themselves.
“The Ministry should change the framework of tuition fees and use the state budget to pay the tuition fees for poor students,” he added.
Ph.D. Mai Hong Quy, rector of the HCM City University of Law, said that public universities were facing financial challenges because they were not allowed to increase tuition fees.
“Universities cannot earn enough money to pay for good lecturers or attract good graduates to work in universities,” she said.
“Graduates from schools of law who speak and write a foreign language fluently can earn a much higher salary than lecturers can,” Ms. Quy added.
However, Mr. Nhan said that universities who set their own fees must still follow general rules and the Ministry of Education and Training must have the right to regulate and monitor a university’s operations.
“Education is a special provisory service because poor training leads to [unskilled] graduates,” he said.
“Who will be responsible for poor training? No one other than the Ministry of Education and Training can do that.”
“The responsibility of the ministry is to protect learners’ interests and that does not mean to closely control schools.
“In the case of public universities, the ministry invests and monitors educational quality on behalf of the state,” the minister added.
Source: SGGP
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Health Ministry says 85 City chemists meet standards
In Uncategorized on November 24, 2008 at 1:45 pm Around 85 drug stores in Ho Chi Minh City are qualified to meet the new Good Pharmacy Practices (GPP) standard.
This follows an order from the Ministry of Health last year that requires all pharmacies to meet the GPP standard by 2011 in order to remain in operation.
The GPP standard requires pharmacy owners to have a pharmacist’s certificate and a pharmacist always on duty. It further requires that drugs clearly display their origin of manufacture and instructions for storage and use.
Out of the 85 GPP-complicant drug stores, 41 are managed by city hospitals, with the rest being privately-owned.
Recently, the HCM City Department of Health has set a target to get 100 percent of the city’s pharmacies GPP-complicant in 2009. Out of the country’s approximate 3,816 pharmacies, 70 percent are in HCM City .
Pham Khanh Phong Lan, the department’s deputy head, said she was urging public hospitals to be the vanguard in standard compliance, since hospital pharmacies make up 70 percent of the city’s drug market.
One of the most challenging tasks for drug store owners in complying with the standard is finding qualified pharmacists to staff their stores.
Trinh Nguyen Tuyen, owner of the Thien An Drugstore in Tan Binh District, said that while she could afford to comply with all the GPP’s requirements, she was unable to find a pharmacist.
According to Lan, the city’s medicine branch is facing a great challenge in staffing pharmacists. She attributed this to the fact that 100 percent of pharmacists open their own pharmacies.
HCM City has around 3,956 pharmacists, at a rate of 4.5 pharmacists per 1,000 people. This is three times higher than the national rate but is still lower that the world’s average.-
Concern over new standards for luxury apartments
In Uncategorized on November 21, 2008 at 11:08 am |
| New buildings loom above Ha Noi’s Khuat Duy Tien Street. The Ministry of Construction has just published criteria for classifying buildings. — VNA/VNS Photo Huy Hung |
HA NOI — Looking for a high-class apartment in Viet Nam? Make sure it has a bidet, or it could be worth less than you think.
The construction minis-try’s circular No 14, officially circulated last June, outlined the criteria used to classify high-rise buildings. One of those for the two top classes is that apartments must have at least one bidet.
A sales official from the Phu My Hung Company, one of biggest real estate companies in Viet Nam, said the most luxurious 250sq.m flats in Phu My Hung residential area that cost billions of dong would not make the classification. The apartments all lack bidets.
Nguyen Van Dat, General Director of Phat Dat Real Estate Development Joint Stock Co in HCM City, said he was ignoring this circular because his company’s high-rise buildings had already been completed.
He said that a building’s class was assessed based on its cost and other criteria, not whether the bathrooms all had bidets.
Truong Thanh Nhan, the general director of Van Phat Hung Company investing in the Phu My real estate project, expressed concern that while the company had advertised their building as top-class, they did not meet the circular standards. Most of their apartments are also missing bidets.
Deputy Construction Minister Nguyen Tran Nam argued that installing bidets in buildings was necessary to serve women.
According to the circular, there are four classes of high-rises in Viet Nam.
A first-class (luxury) building must meet top technology, architecture, infrastructure, equipment and service requirements. Apartments must be over 70sq.m, with a living room, bedroom, kitchen, dining room, toilet and other service rooms. Each must have at least two toilets, and the main bedroom should have a private toilet. Minimum hygiene equipment includes a sink, hygienic tub, bidet, shower and washtub.
Apartments in the next class down as regulated by the Ministry of Construction must be over 60sq.m and also be equipped with bidets.
Under the new criteria, no new projects in HCM City fall into either of these classes.
Unfeasible regulation
Other standards include having enough space for both car and motorbike parking for each apartment.
“The Phu My high-rise building has 500 flats which means that the building must have parking lots for around 750 cars,” said Nhan, the general director of Van Phat Hung Company. “But we can’t possibly get that much space for a parking garage.”
Deputy minister Nam suggested that investors build underground garages or five or six-storey car parks.
Secretary General of HCM City Real Estate Association, Do Thi Loan said the ministry’s Circular No14 not only had unfeasible standards, it also contradicted with other regulations or circulars from the same ministry.
She noted that some flats were under 50sq.m but still cost several billions of dong. She said there was no reason why these flats would rank as third or fourth class.
An investor of a high-rise building located in the southern area of HCM City said he was concerned about his building’s classification. He said it was impossible to rank the building as first or second class because most of the flats did not meet the ministry’s regulations.
He noted that if the building was ranked as third class, it would lower its value.
Deputy chairman of HCM City’s Construction Technology and Science Association, Phan Phung Sanh said that Viet Nam had not previously classified buildings. The initiative came after some buildings were advertised as luxury-class, sold at high prices and turned out to be dumps.
According to Sanh, classification should be based on detailed standards of equipment, services and the final product.
Officials of HCM City’s new urban area’s management board said Viet Nam needed to circulate standards on designing, constructing, checking and managing buildings.
HCM City University of Economics lecturer Nguyen Xuan Chau said that construction materials of first or second-ranking buildings should be clearly regulated.
According to deputy minister Nam, Viet Nam was still a new market, with limited personal standards, meaning that criteria to classify apartments were necessary.
“The circular is good for buyers because it raises the responsibility of investors,” he said. —
Health ministry sets tough new standards for driving
In Uncategorized on October 18, 2008 at 12:52 pmHA NOI — The Ministry of Health (MoH) has released a new set of health standards setting rules for vehicle users nationwide.
The Decree 33/2008 says that those who are under 1.45m tall and weighing under 40kg will no longer be allowed to drive motorbikes, and car drivers must now be at least 1.5m.
It also sets new standards for professional drivers, saying they must be at least 1.62m tall to get a driving licence.
Tran Son, representative of the Ministry of Public Security, said that drivers not meeting the new standards would have their licences revoked, to ensure the safety of road users.
All drivers would be weighed and measured when their licences expire in order to get a new one, he said.
Tran Quy Tuong, vice director of the MoH Treatment Department, said the new criteria were based on the development of a healthy society. “The regulation is suitable for Vietnamese people and meets international regulations,” said Tuong.
Le Danh Tuyen, vice director of the National Nutrition Institute said that the average height of Vietnamese has been increasing in recent years. Statistics from 2000 showed that Vietnamese men are now an average 1.62m tall and weighed 52kg. Women now reach an average 1.53m tall and 46kg.
“Based on the average, people who don’t meet the height and weight requirements are considered not healthy enough to control vehicles, which is a danger for both drivers and pedestrians,” said Ly Ngoc Kinh, director of the MoH Treatment Department.
Dang Tran Mui, vice director of the Centre for Science Research and Training under the Ha Noi Department of Transport, said that people should look at other forms of transport if they do not meet the new standards.
A new health certificate is required to get a driving licence that stipulates height and weight checks.
However, enforcement may be difficult, as police are not equipped with measuring tapes and scales.
“I don’t think this is a proper regulation. People whose bodies are rather small don’t always drive carelessly. I wonder how police will know who is under 40kg to fine them,” said Nguyen Van Minh, resident of Linh Dam urban area in Hoang Mai District of Ha Noi.
Nguyen Hong Ha, manager of a transport project to help the disabled said that the adjustment does not take into account amputees and other disabilities. She also said that vehicles can be modified for the disabled to drive them, which does not necessarily make short people dangerous drivers. The MoH seems to have arbitrarily made the decision, she said.
Vo Van Van, deputy director of HCM City’s road traffic police bureau, said no statistics were available on road accidents caused by short people, making it difficult to assess the impact of the new regulations. —
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