Regulation about doctorate training: set doctorates in ASEAN as a standard

Mrs. Nguyen Thi Kim Phung has answered issue about the regulation draft for doctoral training. Photo: Ministry of Education and Training

Currently, the Ministry of Education and Training is taking feedback from the society about the draft of anew regulation for doctorate training. Mrs. Nguyễn Thị Kim Phụng said that: “The current regulation for Ph.D training is stipulated that a foreign language is compulsory when graduating, however, the draft of new regulation for doctorate training is stipulated that a foreign language must satisfy certain standards at the input. At the same time, it also requires that post graduate students have to demonstrate their capacity in scientific research via published works domestically and internationally.

Additionally, to ensure the output, the draft of the regulation requires post graduate students to get international publications in scientific magazines which have counter-argument part or published works on the summary record of an international workshop that has counter-argument during the research at the institute and before the dissertation is approved by the specialized unit.

This draft also stipulated that the instructor is the main responsible person for science and technology tasks at the institute level or participate in science and technology mission at ministry level. Also, they are the author or co-author of an international project related to the topic of dissertation. They must be on permanent staff of an educational institution.

Furthermore, post graduate students must have have a maximum of 2 instructors for guidance. In case, the first instructor is not a lecturer, researcher of the institute where post graduate students are enrolled, the second instructor must be on permanent staff of that institute.

Moreover, in case where the instructor is an independent doctorate holder, but he/she has not get the title of professor or associate professor yet. So he/she must prove that he/she has scientific work that qualified as professor level, as prescribed by the Professoriate Council of the country.

The instructor can be engaged to the Council at school level or academy level. In case of necessity, in order to facilitate the post graduate students and their instructor will have the right for protecting their dissertation and increase objectivity when assessing the dissertation, especially for topics that have limited specialists. Mentor and thesis defense council of institute level are responsible with post graduate student when their thesis is claimed due to plagiarism.

Currently, the framework of the national education system is enacted, therefore, the draft of the new regulation for doctorate training also provides the total time for training (including the extension period) will be shortened in order to appropriate with the current trend and each candidate (bachelor's degree, master's degree). However, the minimum time to complete the dissertation is 3 years (instead of 2 years as before). The form of training is full-time and training institutions should be responsible for managing post graduate students during study period.

Besides that, the Prime Minister has issued the Vietnam national qualifications framework, in that the requirement for qualified degree and the capacity achieved by graduates for each level of training to get a certificate. PhD is the highest grade (grade 8/8) according to the reference framework of the National education system. To achieve the outcomes that meet the requirements of the Vietnam national qualifications framework, the PhD degree in Vietnam must be equivalent to PhD degree in ASEAN countries.