The decision was aimed at speeding up the evaluation for tertiary education quality and improving training quality.

Only 40 out of 476 universities and colleges have been evaluated between 2005 and 2009 and only 20 universities have met the standards. No more universities have been evaluated since then.

As of October 31 this year, only 166 out of 262 universities and academies and 173 out of 214 colleges have completed a report on self-assessment and many establishments have yet to pay proper attention to the work.

The newly-established working group called the Centre for Education Quality Assurance is under the management of Vietnam National University – Hanoi (VNU-Hanoi). It will be designed to evaluate and certify universities and training programmes nationwide except for universities and training programmes under VNU-Hanoi.

The ministry is considering setting up another centre under the Vietnam National University – HCM City in the near future.

“Such working groups would make decisions on the certification of universities and training programmes without the interference of any third party,” said Dr. Pham Xuan Thanh, Deputy Director of the ministry’s General Department of Education Testing and Accreditation.

Some education experts said the setup of such centres would improve the quality of education because more universities would be evaluated.

However, some others wonder about the objectivity of the decisions made by such centres, as the said centres are working under the Vietnam National University which is still under the management of the MoET.

They suggested that education regulatory agencies should be independent from MoET to increase quality of evaluation.