* The Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry has put into operation a system that allows students to judge their lecturers via its website.

Dr Nguyen Duc Minh, academic affairs chief, said that students have to rate the teaching quality of their instructors before they can see their end-of-semester test scores on the site.

Criteria used in this grading scheme include lecture preparations, textbooks, related materials, pedagogical skills, and instructions on self-study, among others.

* A Ho Chi Minh City University has recently fired a dean following allegations of his trading in test questions.

Professor Nguyen Tan Dac, vice president of Hong Bang University, said that he signed a decision to sack Dang Ngoc Hoang, the former Dean of the Political Theory Department, even though the university has failed to gather concrete evidence for Hoang’s alleged wrongdoings.

“We gave him the axe because a huge number of students had written to the school management saying that Hoang forced them to pay him to get test questions at his home,” a school official explained. “They added that the former dean found fault with or even failed anyone who disobeyed his rules.”

* Authorities in the central city of Da Nang have opened the door again to graduates of part-time training programs after one year of banning them from entering the civil service.

The Da Nang Department of Internal Affairs said in a recent civil servant recruitment announcement that it will accept applications from candidates who have graduated from a part-time training program.

Last year Da Nang said it would not consider part-time program graduates when looking for civil servants.

In Vietnam, part-time courses usually offer much lower education quality than full-time equivalents.

* A private university in Ho Chi Minh City has just found a new strategic stakeholder to save itself from being dissolved following facility and enrollment difficulties.

Van Hien University has been grappling with low applicant numbers over the last few years, and was recently banned from recruiting new students in the 2012-13 academic year, which started in early September, as it failed to meet national teaching space and faculty size requirements.

The school called for funding from investors and the Ho Chi Minh City-based Hung Hau Development Joint Stock Company then decided to give it a helping hand.

The firm, specializing in seafood, has initially agreed to invest VND75 billion (US$3.6) to buy a campus and build offices and lecture halls for the university in the near future.

The Ministry of Education and Training, which imposed the ban on Van Hien, has recently warned that those schools which were prohibited from accepting new enrollees this year for their failure to meet national standards will be shut down completely if they cannot mange to stay up to par by next year.