Higher Education and Nguyen Essay

Nowadays, education is a main concern of society. The government shows a lot of solutions to improve education and try to make it better and better. In the article ‘Time to expand our views on education’, published in Thanh Nien News in January 2012, Nguyen Thi Phuong Nguyen argues that the public university system in Vietnam needs to be improved and people should change their attitudes towards higher education. Nguyen presents some solutions to help Vietnamese education be improved and this essay will critically evaluate her main suggestions. Nguyen mentions two main problems that helps the government improve Vietnamese education. The first problem is there should be stricter penalties for law-breaking institutions. Many universities are doubted of their legality. They cheat students out of fees and earn a lot of money from students. The second problem mentions that the government needs to spend money more effectively on tertiary education. They do not know how to spend money usefully. The government needs to find the way of spending money effectively to improve their quality. Nguyen’s first argument, Nguyen makes a good points when she states that the laws against institutions need to be more severe. Many universities advertise that they have good service, high qualities and good teachers. But it is not true. They have poor qualities and teachers do not help students to study better. Students pay a lot of money to study in there, and they do not have good environment as advertisement. The worst penalty that can be expected is a small fine. The government should be stricter. Many cheating universities should be forced to close. Nguyen’s second argument, Nguyen is correct when she state that the government needs to spend money more effectively on tertiary education. They spend a lot of money for advertisement and marketing, which is ineffective. They can use this budget to equip modern equipments in class and find good teachers. For example, education accounts for 20% of all state budget expenditures and stands at 5.5% of GDP (MOET 2008). This is higher than many other countries in the region. Therefore, the problem is how the budget is spent more effectively. In conclusion, Nguyen’s article ‘Time to expand our views on education’ shows many suggestions and solutions for the development of Vietnam’s higher education system. Both of her arguments that the law-breaking institutions need to be sereve and the government should focus on tertiary education are acceptale. The government need to do them to develop the Vietnam’s higher education system. Although the article has both strong and weak arguments, overall message is effective for development of Vietnamese education.