Journal of Asian Public Policy, 2014
Vol. 7, No. 1, 71–82, />
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Governance in higher education in Vietnam – a move towards
decentralization and its practical problems
Thi Tuyet Tran*
The University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam
Decentralization, the transfer of decision-making authority, responsibility and tasks
from higher to lower organizational levels, has been adopted as a policy in governance
in higher education (HE) in Vietnam. With the decision to move away from the
traditional centralization in decision-making, the government expects to bring HE
institutions more autonomy and accountability, and increase the effectiveness of the
system. However, the limited understanding and experience in leading the change, the
unclear strategies for successful policy implementation, the overlapping functions
among different related authorities and the lack of necessary financial support for the
change, all hinder the effort to decentralize the system. The reform in governance in
HE in Vietnam also proves that decentralization is not necessarily a good thing,
especially when the lower organizations who receive the power are not strong enough
to create a positive change, and when the central ministry also loosens the control over
the outcomes or the goals the lower organizations need to achieve.
Keywords: decentralization; centralization; governance; higher education institutions;
Vietnam

Introduction
This paper will focus on decentralization as a government strategy in higher education
(HE) in Vietnam. In the first part of this paper, the theoretical framework of decentralization, which is contextualized from an educational research aspect, will be developed.
Under this theoretical framework, it is argued that in a complex and shifting environment,
it is necessary for Vietnam to reconsider the governance in HE, though it still wants to
retain the Leninist ideology. Devolution to the institutional level, or in other words, giving
more autonomy to individual institutions in the system, seems to be a way to ensure
flexibility, accountability and diversity in the Vietnamese higher education system (HES).

Nonetheless, the lack of strategic planning, the insufficient infrastructure and financial
support for institutional autonomy, the unwillingness to release the power of the political
party and the lack of expertise in leading the change have all affected the reform and thus,
the decentralization in HE in Vietnam has not reached its expected stage of development.

Decentralization – a theoretical framework
In order to set the framework for the research, this paper will clarify the range of meanings
attached to the term ‘decentralization’. It will also distinguish between various types of
decentralization in practice. Then, the reasons suggested for the tendency of
*Email:
© 2014 Taylor & Francis


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decentralization in education and some of the motives leading towards the application of
decentralization in education worldwide will also be identified.
Meanings and types of decentralization
Even though decentralization has become a government strategy in different sectors in
many countries all over the world, there is no agreement over the common definition of
the term. The word ‘decentralization’ ‘can mean different things to different people’ (Bray
2007, p. 175), or in other words, it has ‘no precise meaning’ (Karlsen 2000, p. 526).
However, it is normally used to refer to the shift of responsibility and authority to the
lower level of government. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
defines decentralization as ‘decentralization, or decentralizing government, refers to the
restructuring or reorganization of authority so that there is a system of co-responsibility
between institutions of governance at the central, regional and local levels according to
the principle of subsidiary’ (UNDP 1999, p. 2). Hanson offers a more specific definition

of decentralization as ‘the transfer of decision-making authority, responsibility, and tasks
from higher to lower organizational levels or between organizations’ (Hanson 1998, p.
112). With this definition, Hanson distinguishes clearly the redistribution of powers and
the redistribution of functions within and between government and non-government
organizations (Bray and Mukundan 2004). Because of the complexities of meaning, it
is necessary to differentiate between two types of understanding of decentralization:
functional and territorial decentralization. Functional decentralization refers to a shift
in the distribution of powers between various authorities that operate in parallel (Bray and
Mukundan 2004, Bray 2007). Territorial decentralization, by contrast, refers to a transfer
of power from higher to lower levels (McGinn and Welsh 1999).
The emergence of decentralization in education
McGinn and Welsh (1999) claim that the need for decentralization in education comes
from the political, economic, technological and financial environment in the end of the
twentieth century.
First, the last two decades of the twentieth century witnessed the collapse of the
Communist system, and disintegration of the western ‘Keynesian consensus’, both of
which had favoured strong and centralized governments (McGinn and Welsh 1999, pp.
27–28). They also marked the success of the liberal political ideology with its concept of
democracy and market orientation. After the fall of the Iron Curtain of the Communist
governments, the world’s political landscape was reshaped. There was no more support
for the centralistic policies. Instead, the market-oriented policy of the liberal ideology
showed its superiority and has been adopted by many governments worldwide. The
market-oriented economy has been seen as the best way to allocate resources in the
society. Thus the market, not the government, should be the one who decides how
resources should be allocated (Rizvi and Lingard 2010).
Second, the development of globalization both economically and financially has
actually weakened the central role of the governments. The deterritorialization characteristic of globalization (Singh et al. 2005) and the development of the supranational and
international organizations have reduced national sovereignty. In addition, the shift
towards market-based decision-making has empowered local groups (McGinn and
Welsh 1999). It allows local groups to decide on their own matters, and to gain more

influence in society.


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Globalization and the market-oriented economic policy of the Liberal affects all
aspects of life worldwide. In education, the idea of lowering the unit cost with increased
numbers of students within an organization has been started to be questioned; especially
when the number of enrolments had doubled and tripled (McGinn and Welsh 1999, p. 27).
The centralized educational systems became huge in size and posed too much expenditure
in the national budget (Sack and Saidi 1997). The central governments’ financial burdens
and increased public dissatisfaction have resulted in the pressure to shift decision-making
to smaller organizations (McGinn and Welsh 1999).
Finally, the development of new information and communication technologies has
also enabled the central government to both decentralize the management of education
and still achieve high levels of control over the whole system. In the new era of fast and
cheap information technology, it is possible for the central government to shift the
management of education to the local authorities, but still keep the control over the
overall goals and quality of education (Cooper and Florestal 1997). This leads to a new
paradigm of management which emphasizes attention on outputs rather than how these
outputs are achieved. Now the central government can, on the one hand, set goals for
education, and on the other hand, give freedom to the local government to decide the way
to achieve this goal. However, the responsibility to control that these goals are reached is
rested with the central government.
With the development of modern information technologies, the central government
could now decentralize management to local authorities, lighten the financial burden from
education and, at the same time, still keep close control over the quality output of
educational systems. The term ‘decentralization’ is often associated with the idea that

the role of the government or the state will be weakened. However, it is suggested that
rather than being weakened, the role of the states in controlling the education sector in
many countries has actually been strengthened (Hanson 1999, Hawkins 2000, Bray 2007).
Regardless of whatever strategies or forms of governance, such as decentralization or
centralization, are adopted, the state does not entirely retreat from the process. In
decentralization, the role of the state changes from the one of carrying out most of the
work of education itself to determining what work will be done and by whom (Mok
2001).
Nonetheless, decentralization requires conditions to be successfully implemented.
According to McGinn and Welsh (1999), the successful implementation of any kind of
reform, decentralization included, needs two kinds of conditions to be met, namely the
political support for the proposed changes and the capability to carry the changes of those
involved in the reforms. Several studies, such as Gershberg’s (2002) and Mukundan’s
(2003), also suggest that when one or both of these conditions had not been met
adequately, decentralization reforms have often failed to reach the objectives set for them.
Moreover, there is also another way of looking at the term decentralization which
often refers to a movement of authority and responsibility from the central to the local, or
in other words, to the periphery (territory decentralization) (Brown 1990). However,
central and periphery can be seen as relative concepts depending on the context, because
there normally exists both a centre in the periphery and a periphery in the centre. So what
is considered decentralization at one level may be seen as centralization at another
(Karlsen 2000). Galtung develops a framework for this that he terms ‘peripheral centre’
(Galtung 1974). Decentralization, the increased autonomy for the lower level of the
hierarchy by giving it more authority and responsibility, is not necessarily a good thing
(Hawkins 2000). The question is: who is really receiving that authority in a very
complicated educational hierarchy? Are they capable of making a positive change for


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the whole system? Or if not, they may simply act as a centre of the periphery, and may
create more centralization over its periphery.
In the following sections, some background information on the centralized governance
in Vietnamese HE and its problems will be discussed. The attempt to decentralize the HES
of the central government, to increase institutional autonomy, will also be discussed as a
solution for the problems of the system. However, Vietnam does not seem to prepare well
enough for the conditions to implement this reform, thus the gap between policy and
practice seems to be large and complicated. This gap will also be examined at the end of
this paper.
Background of the Vietnam’s HES and its governance
The long history under French colonization, and then the adoption of the socialist system
both have shaped the centralized governance in every aspect of life in Vietnam, HE is no
exception. The centric role of the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has
remained strong in the system. Until recently, MOET has still controlled most aspects
of life in the HES in Vietnam. MOET has been given the responsibility to prescribe the
curriculum framework for all undergraduate courses, including ‘content structure, number
of subjects, duration of training, time proportion between studying and practicing’
(Hayden 2005, p. 9). The Education Law also reinforces the centric nature of managing
the curriculum framework by confirming that MOET has responsibility for ‘compilation
and approval of syllabi for common use by colleges or universities’.1
In addition to the curriculum, MOET has also controlled the most important decisions
of each institution: course approvals, number of staff, number of students admitted and
even the rector of each institution is designated by MOET (SEAMEO 2007). The
university entrance exam, which is considered as the most important aspect of each
student’s life in Vietnam, is also designed and monitored by MOET.
Apart from MOET, many public universities are also under their ‘line ministries’.2
Line-ministry control is a feature of HESs in the former Soviet bloc countries. Most
countries in the system have abolished line-ministry control over public HE. For example,

Hungary abolished it in 1993, China took the same decision in 1998. However, this
feature has remained in Vietnam. The line-ministry often has a strong voice in decisionmaking of universities as it ‘provides funds and management necessary for the existence
of these institutions’ (Hayden and Lam 2007, p. 76). In addition, each university has a
Committee of Communist Party with the mission to make sure all activities of universities
are not against the Communist ideology. With that many layers of control, universities in
Vietnam do not have much room for their own voices and decisions.
Nonetheless, the government has realized that this management is no longer appropriate. Political changes and economic development both have certain impacts on the
ideas of change in the governance in HE in Vietnam.
After the collapse of the soviet system by the end of 1980s and especially after Doi
moi, an economic liberalization policy in 1986, although Vietnam has remained a socialist
country with the Communist Party in control, the economic liberalization had a significant
and immediate impact on the economy, which was marked by a change from the central
planned economy to a market-oriented one (Nguyen 2006). Since then, the Vietnamese
economy has developed very quickly with the booming of the private sector. Similarly, the
Vietnamese HE sector has also expanded rapidly and it has moved from elite to mass HE.
In 1987, there were only 101 colleges and universities in the whole country, with a total of
more than 100,000 students. In 2012, by contrast, in accordance with the massification of


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75

HE elsewhere, these numbers grew to 419 universities and colleges, and more than 2.2
million students (MOET 2012). This has put significant pressure on the government’s
budget. Every year since the introduction of Doi moi, the government has increased
funding for HE, but still could not keep up with the demand of the ‘booming’ of the
HES (Nguyen 2009). Moreover, it became an impossible mission for MOET to keep a
closer eye on all activities of the whole system. The Vietnamese Government has realized
that the model of centralized governance is no longer appropriate for the HES, given

MOET’s demonstrated weakness in managing the whole system, as well as the financial
burden on the government budget, and the urge for change from the internal HES. There
is a desire by the government to ‘decentralize decision-making accountability to HE
institutions for the purposes of achieving greater efficiency and effectiveness in the use
of resources’ (Hayden and Lam 2007, p. 81). There is an attempt to adopt the worldwide
trend towards decentralization of decision-making authority from the government to the
local level of campus control (Marcus 1997, MacTaggart 1998, McLendon 2003).
The attempt at decentralization of the HES
The decentralization policy in Vietnamese HE aims to increase autonomy for institutions
in the system, to bring institutions the right to decide and be responsible for training,
research, human resource management and budget planning. With this design, the central
government has been attempting to territorially decentralize the educational system in
Vietnam. The very first attempt to decentralize HE territorially was made in 1993 with the
process of establishing the two National Universities (VNUs), which have been given
privileged status in the system and can operate within charters given to them directly by
the Cabinet. However, the real attempt to decentralize the whole HES was made in 2005
with the implementation of the Education Law of 2005 and the resolution No 14/2005/
NQ-CP dated 2 November 2005 on ‘substantial and comprehensive renewal of Vietnam’s
tertiary education in the 2006–2020 period’ (HERA). Article 14 of the Education Law
states that the Government decides to ‘exercise decentralization on educational management; strengthen the autonomy and accountabilities of educational institutions’. HERA
represents the attempt and the desire from the central government to decentralize the
system, to ‘switch public tertiary education institutions to operate under an autonomous
mechanism whereby they shall have the full legal person status and the right to decide on,
and bear responsibility for, training, research, organization, personnel and finance’
(HERA 2005, p. 7).
The government expected that the reform HERA would lead may result in a system
that is ‘more flexible in providing opportunities for course transfer, more equitable, more
financially self-reliant, more research oriented’ (Dao and Hayden 2010, p. 133). Another
objective of HERA is to eliminate line-ministry control and to ‘concentrate the state
management on the formulation and direction of implementation of the development

strategy; direction of operation of the tertiary education quality control and inspection
system;…’ (HERA 2005, p. 7). HERA indicates a new kind of relationship between the
state and HE (Do and Ho 2011, p. 15) which will give more room for the voice and
authority of each institution in the system.
Obviously, the policy of decentralization of HE in Vietnam aims to give more
autonomy to individual institutions in the system. The most recent Decree 07/2009
TTLT-BGDDT-BNV and the Higher Education Law implemented at the end of 2012
also aim to bring more accountability, autonomy and self-responsibility for HE institutions. For which, leaders of institutions are authorized to develop their strategic plan; to


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T.T. Tran

set up, re-organize, integrate, separate, dismiss or suspend the activities of their departments. They are also given more authority over recruiting staff and teachers. However,
leaders of institutions have to report to authorities for approval before implementing such
decisions as the strategic plan, or the number of recruitments each year.
The gap between policy and practice
The attempt of the government and the implementation of different regulations, decrees
and instructions do bring some positive changes in the system, which result in the
expanding of the system and the increase in both the number of teachers and students.
However, the impact of this reform has been considered to be modest due to the lack of
political support for the proposed changes, the unclear strategies and timeline for implementation and the weak capability of individual institutions in carrying out the reform.
First, there is not complete political support for the decentralization policy. Though the
desire to decentralize decision-making to HE institutions of the Vietnamese government is
strong, there exists a tension between this desire and a political desire to ‘retain control of
the socialist orientation of higher education’ (Hayden and Lam 2007, p. 81). Although
HERA attempted to empower public HE institutions, to give them ‘full legal person status
and right to decide on, and bear responsibility for training, research, organization,
personnel and finance’, the curriculum frameworks for the whole system has still been

designed and managed by MOET. With these frameworks, the Marxist–Leninist subjects
have remained compulsory in all universities. The rector of each institution has still been
designated by MOET. Then, because of the socialist orientation, institutional self-governance in Vietnam has been and will be unlikely to be accompanied by academic freedom
and individual academic autonomy (Hayden and Lam 2007).
The attempt to retain socialist orientation is not only represented in the way the
government determines the curriculum framework for each institution, it is also represented in the way the government controls the school fee in the whole system. The current
school fee set by the government is claimed to be insufficient to fund the university
activities. However, there is a strong desire from the government to retain it in order to
maintain stability and resolve inequalities in a socialist country. At the moment, institutional autonomy is still considered as a pilot scheme implemented in only five public
universities, and only with financial matters (Pham 2008). However, even these universities also claim that they do not have real autonomy in planning expenses (University
World News 2008). They are allowed to have their own right in spending their budget;
however, the government funding for their universities decreases while they cannot
increase the school fees above the level set by the Financial Ministry. Thus, leaders of
these universities often raise their voices complaining about the difficulties of universities
in finding ways to increase the fund for their activities. Institutional autonomy is an
important aspect of educational autonomy (Lo 2010), and it implies certain freedom: the
freedom to decide on curriculum contents and standards and the freedom to be able to
exercise corporate financial control (Ashby and Anderson 1966). Vietnamese HE institutions do not seem to have this freedom yet.
The second issue is in the policy itself. HERA represents a strong desire of the
Vietnamese Government to decentralize the HES, to increase the autonomy for HE
institutions. However, what seems to be absent is a sense of how HERA’s objectives
are going to be implemented (Hayden and Lam 2006). Thus, until recently, institutional
autonomy was still considered as a trial version in only a few public universities. HERA
also aims to eliminate line-ministry control over public universities. This idea is


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considered to be radical for the development of the system, which will enhance institution
autonomy (Dao and Hayden 2010). However, this idea is not supported with any detailed
plan of how it will be achieved. Thus, until recently, the line-ministry control has still
remained strong and has retained its strong voice in decision-making of universities. For
example, the Finance Academy (one of the five institutions implementing the pilot
institution autonomy) complains that MOET allows them to decide on their own spending,
however, when they want to replace their computers and projectors after 2 years in use,
the Ministry of Finance, their line-ministry does not approve this because according to
their regulation, computers only can be replaced in a 5 year cycle (Hong Hanh 2011).
The third issue which reduces the impact of the reform is the weak capability to lead
the change of the stakeholders. As Dao and Hayden (2010, p. 141) point out, both the
State and HE institutions are struggling to find a way to implement HERA when ‘the
government has no experience of what institutional autonomy implies’. Not only the
government but also the institutions themselves are struggling to understand what institutional autonomy is and how to implement it, because the majority of the university
bureaucrats are strongly conditioned by a culture of centralized planning, and cut off
for so long from exposure to alternative forms of public management – [they] have no
proper understanding of what institutional autonomy for higher education genuinely
means. (Hayden and Lam 2007, p. 81) Thus, the institutions that have been given the
right to exercise autonomy are still struggling to determine their own goals and programmes and the way to pursue those goals and programmes. The case of Vietnam
National Universities discussed below will illustrate this situation.
In addition to the lack of understanding of what institutional autonomy for HE means,
universities in Vietnam do seem to have many internal management issues to be settled.
First, most public HE institutions in Vietnam ‘do not have adequate administrative
systems for the purposes of being able to exercise institutional autonomy effectively’
(Dao and Hayden 2010, p. 135). Then, there is also no clear separation of power between
the Governing Council (which include both the rector and the Party Secretary), the
Communist Party Committee and the Board of Rectors, and sometimes it is hard to say
whose voice is more powerful: the Party Secretary3 or the university rector. The roles and
responsibilities of governing councils and rectors are set by the Charter for Higher
Education Institutions, however, there is limited guidance related to the role of the

Party and the Party Secretary. According to the Charter’s guideline, the rector is the one
who takes the responsibility to develop institutional strategic plans that are consistent with
Party resolutions, then submit these plans to the Governing Council for advises before
issuing related policies and regulations.4 Nonetheless, in general, only regular Party
committee members would hold positions as rectors or vice-rectors in Vietnamese HE
institutions, and there are more and more instances where the rector also performs the role
of the Party Secretary for their institution (Dao and Hayden 2010). The rector’s position is
considered a ‘precarious position’ whose authority ‘will remain forever circumscribed by
Communist Party policies and processes and a state disposition to govern by means of
tight regulatory control’ (Hayden and Lam 2006, p. 13). Nonetheless, traditionally, the
rector or the Party Secretary do not have to decide about matters related to the curriculum,
programmes, institution infrastructure, or the condition of academic work. With decentralization, more authority and also more responsibility are put on their shoulders; however, the financial incentives for them to take on this responsibility may well be negligible
(Hayden and Lam 2007). The lack of experience, expertise and financial incentives may
lead to the resistance of the universities’ leaders to the change (Ho and Berg 2010).


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Therefore, 8 years after the HERA, in 2013, the situation has remained similar to the
time where the state was still in charge of making all important decisions such as
curriculum framework, enrolment quota for each institution, training programmes, and
also tuition fees and expenditure norms. HE institutions remain strongly accountable to
MOET and the line-ministries or the provincial governments. Even in the case of the two
national universities, who have been given much more right to decide on their own
matters, evidence for a positive change is still rare.
The case of VNUs
The case of VNUs is discussed here to illustrate the weak capability of the institutions to
lead the change despite being given a privileged position in the HES in Vietnam. They

have direct authority and power over most of their decisions (particular financial) without
the need of seeking approval from MOET. They are not under any line-ministry and
operate within the charters given to them directly by the Cabinet. The presidents of VNUs
are appointed directly by the Prime Minister and have ministerial-level status. These
universities have also been given the opportunity to generate their internal activities,
including the curriculum framework, funding and expenditure (Hayden and Lam 2007).
VNUs were established with the aims to set up the first multidisciplinary universities in
Vietnam, to transfer more authority and responsibility to these multidisciplinary universities in order to build the first high-quality universities in Vietnam. They are selfaccrediting institutions, so they are free, in theory at least, to choose to depart from
MOET’s ‘theory-oriented’ and ‘heavy’ curriculum (Hayden and Lam 2007). The establishment of VNUs also aimed to bring lecturers and students the possibility of being in a
multidisciplinary university, where students can have more elective subjects and lecturers
can cooperate in their research across campuses. Decentralization, which helps bring a
more institutional autonomy, is considered crucial for HE institutions in Vietnam to
enhance teaching quality and research output and the VNUs are often referred to as
examples of such autonomy (Hayden and Lam 2007, Dapice et al. 2008, Pham 2008, The
World Bank 2008).
However, with the given authority and power, VNUs do not seem to be capable of
leading the change expected, and to fulfil the expectation of the central government.
VNUs are not the same as other universities in the system. They are, as suggested by Vu
(2008), a collection of some existing mono-disciplinary universities. After becoming
members of VNUs, these universities have remained locally managed and been operating
their own ways. VNUs have failed to change these mono-disciplinary universities to a
systemic multidisciplinary university directly under the VNU management board (Ho and
Berg 2010).
Moreover, although the VNUs have been established for nearly 20 years, there is no
evidence showing that these institutions have made any changes to the curriculum framework, or departed from the framework provided by MOET (Hayden and Lam 2007,
p. 76). It is ironic that this lack of initiative from the VNUs has led to more rather than
fewer complications and constraints, particularly for those universities, the so-called
‘member’ universities, who are under the umbrella of the VNUs. This umbrella of the
VNUs is yet another bureaucratic layer superimposed on the member universities who
must follow the guidance of VNUs to generate most of their internal matters such as staff

employment, or budget spending.
Since VNUs have not taken up the opportunity to change the curriculum framework,
which is widely criticized as outdated, and overloaded teachers and students in the system


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(The World Bank 1994, Stephen et al. 2006, Nguyen 2008, Pham 2008, Hoang 2009,
Tran and Swierczek 2009), they are effectively a kind of proxy-MOET in terms of
curriculum framework, textbook approvals or the university entrance exam. They have
become one more bureaucratic layer in between MOET and member universities. In most
cases, these member universities are under more control than other universities who are
directly under MOET.
Obviously, VNUs have become the ‘peripheral centres’, as suggested in the Galtung
framework, who simply act as a centre of the periphery and place more centralization over
its periphery (Galtung 1974). The ‘periphery centre’ role of VNUs also imposes one more
managing layer for the ‘local’ managements of member universities. For example, the
rector of each member university seems to be under more control than before, as they
have to ask for permission from VNUs for almost every matter in their university. This is
consistent with Bray’s claim that ‘although attempts to empower local communities may
appear to be laudable attempts at decentralization, the fact that such communities may be
dominated by factional elites may leave other groups feeling at least as marginalized as
before’ (Bray 2007, p. 192).
However, when VNUs have operated for 20 years (since 1993) but have not reached
their primary goal of becoming multidisciplinary universities with high-quality outcome,
the government also has to take some responsibility. Decentralization with whatever forms
should not weaken the role of the government (Hawkins 2000, Bray 2007). In addition to
setting goals for education and giving freedom to the local government to decide how to

achieve the goals, the government should also take responsibility to control that these
goals are reached (Cooper and Florestal 1997). However, that is not the case in Vietnam.
The General Department of Education Testing and Accreditation (GDETA), who takes the
responsibility of governmental management of assessment and quality control for the
whole educational system, was only established in 2003 (MOET 2008). GDETA is a
department under MOET. With less than 10 years of experience and limited human
resources, the responsibility of establishing an accreditation system, of coordinating the
tests for entrance examinations into universities and also of monitoring the quality of the
whole system from preschool to tertiary education sounds too much for GDETA
(Westerheijden et al. 2010). GDETA has always been under-resourced for its responsibilities and overloaded with commitments (Westerheijden et al. 2010). The loose control
of GDETA over the overall quality of VNUs reflects both the loose relationship between
MOET and VNUs and the weak capability of GDETA in monitoring the quality of the
whole system (Hayden and Lam 2007).
If VNU could not lead the expected change, it is unrealistic to expect a positive
change from other institutions that are under much tighter controls and with limited access
to academic funding. It seems that the whole Vietnamese HE is now hovering in a nether
region where it is neither properly decentralized nor centralized. In this murky zone
between the two, a lack of mutual trust results in inconsistencies and poor communication
between the two operating systems. The tension between the socialist ideology and the
performativity culture, the unclear strategies for decentralization implementation and the
weak capability of HE institutions to carry out the change all hinder the efforts to increase
institutional autonomy for Vietnamese HE institutions. The weak capability of the central
government in controlling the quality output of the system is also worth mentioning.
Decentralization is the process enabling the government to change its role form controlling to supervision (Mok 2001, Bray 2007). However, in the case of Vietnam, on the one
hand, the government does not seem to be willing to give up their power, on the other


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hand, it does not seem to be prepared well enough to be able to carry the supervision task
successfully.

Conclusion
Obviously, the Vietnamese Government has started to adopt the worldwide trend of
decentralization in HE management. However, lacking experience and understanding of
how decentralization might work in the local context, the Vietnamese policy-makers did
not seem to be practical when designing HERA. The list of 32 objectives of HERA has
stayed as a wish list and seems to be unreachable under the current conditions. The
government does need to bring a more feasible plan for its HES to increase their
accountability and autonomy.
Moreover, decentralization, the transfer of decision-making authority, responsibility
and tasks from the central ministry to lower organizations does need strong support from
political forces. When the design to retain control of socialist orientation of HE is still
vividly alive, it is hard for institutions to have their substantial autonomy, or the freedom
to decide on their own matters. Nonetheless, even when given much freedom in decisionmaking accountability like the case of VNUs, VNUs seem to lack capability to take the
power. When VNUs, the lower organizations who receive the power, are not strong
enough to create a positive change, and when the government does not seem to be
capable of monitoring the quality of VNUs, VNUs have become new ‘periphery centres’,
or in other words, a new layer of management over their member universities. Thus,
instead of increasing the autonomy for its member institutions, VNUs virtually place more
centralization over its periphery, the member universities.
Since decentralization has ‘no precise meaning’ (Bray 2007, p. 175) and can ‘mean
different things to different people’ (Karlsen 2000, p. 526), since institutional autonomy
can come in a variety of forms and there is no set template for it (Bray 2007, Hayden and
Lam 2007), Vietnam does need to engage in the process to discover, to design or to create
its own form of institutional autonomy. This form needs to take into account the political
importance of the Communist Party in Vietnam, the current governance infrastructure
across the system and the long-lasting culture of centralized planning and bureaucratic

decision-making in Vietnam.

Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.

Education Law, 2005, Section 4, Article 41.
For example: University of Health is under the Ministry of Health, University of Agriculture is
under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
The Party Secretary is the chief of the Communist Party Committee in each university.
University Regulations, 2007, Section 3, Article 34.

References
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