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Despite Vietnam spending billions of dollars on education annually, the quality of the country’s education remains far from expectations, one educator has said.

Professor Nguyen Xuan Han from Vietnam National University – Hanoi, said that the country’s investment in education is quite high, accounting for 20% of the state budget in 2007, a rate much higher than the figures of several developed countries, including the US 7.2%, France 6.1%, Japan 4.7% and China 12%.

Last year, total spending on education represented nearly 10% of the nation’s GDP, equivalent to USD12 billion, including USD7 billion from the state budget.

Han noted that the inadequacies and backwardness of the country’s education were obvious at a tertiary level.

The number of universities and colleges nationwide has reached around 500 and the figure was set to climb to 576 schools with a total of 4.5 million students by 2020.

This indicates a quintupling in the number of schools and a 13-fold rise in the number of students compared to the figures of 1987. However, the number of lecturers had only tripled during the period, he said.

The rapid development of new schools has stemmed from increasing demand of the national economy. Worse still, tertiary education is relatively low in quality, resulting in graduates failing to meet requirements of the international labour market.

“It would be terribly wasteful to train human resource that could not meet market demand,” he emphasised.

Han cited a saying by a professor from Harvard University that failures in the education system not only restricted national development but fostered social inequity.

According to him, the processes of compiling and printing textbooks had cost a lot of money and proven ineffective.

The country currently has 55 publishing houses and 6,200 state and private printing enterprises with an average annual revenue of USD1 billion. The demand for paper to print books reaches around two million tonnes per year with 60% of which coming from foreign sources.

Hanoi Book and Trading Company’s recent survey showed that in 2008 the country printed a total of 3,120 reference books for students at high school education level.

He added that despite huge investment, the country had not yet worked out a standard set of textbooks. Annual amendments to text books meant a serious squandering of funds.

Book amendments from 2002 to 2011 cost VND32 trillion (USD1.53 billion). Another amendment planned for after 2015 may cost around VND70 trillion (USD3.35 million).

“It’s essential to conduct comprehensive education reform in order to meeting rising demand. During the process, due attention should be paid to ensuring adequate education infrastructure,” he shared.

“I believe that the establishment of a national steering committee for education reform is of great importance. The agency should operate independently from the Ministry of Education and Training. Its mission should be to conduct a general education inspection in 2013 and compile a comprehensive plan for education reform in 2014 which should be submitted to the government and National Assembly for approval in early 2015.”

He added that the country is still facing great challenges, but changing the way of thinking could be the toughest.