MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINNING
THE VIETNAM INSTITUTE OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES

HO THI NGA

MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS TO FACULTY STAFF OF
LOCAL UNIVERSITIES IN THE CURRENT CONTEXT

Major: Educational Management
Code: 62.14.01.02

SUMMARY OF DOCTORAL THESIS OF SCIENCE EDUCATION

HANOI - 2017


Work has been completed at:
THE VIETNAM INSTITUTE OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES

Supervisors:
1. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Xuan Thuc
2. Dr. Tran Thi To Oanh

Reviewer 1:

Reviewer 2:

Reviewer 3:

The thesis will be defended in front of the Institutional Panel at The
Vietnam Institute of Educational Sciences, 101 Tran Hung Dao

3. Subject of research
Management operations to faculty staff of local universities in Vietnam
4. Sciencetific hypothesis
Management operations of faculty staff at local universities in the
context of the current education reform still reveal the inadequacies and
limitations in recruitment, training and retraining, assessment and create a
motivations for faculties to develop themsleves. If there are solutions to
manage faculty staff at local universities in line with the context of higher
education reform and the current local context, the quality of faculty staff
will be improved, thereby improving the quality of training in local
universities.
5. Asigments and Scope of research
5.1. Asigments of research
- Researching the theoretical basis of the teaching staff management
under human resource management approach.


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- Assessing the qualified status of faculty staff in local universities
Vietnam today.
- Assessing of qualified status of management acitvities of teaching
staff in Vietnam local universities; generalizing the experiences about the
teaching staff management, pointing outthe influencing factors ,strengths,
weakness, opportunities and challenges.
- Proposing series of solutions to manage the teaching staff at local
universities next time in Vietnam under the human resources management
approach.
- Proposing and pilotingsome management solutions at local
universities in Vietnam under human resource management approaach.

under human resources management approach will be applied, the
limitations, shortcomings will be solved and the quality of faculty staff will
be improved.
8. New contributions of research
- Systemizing theory of managing faculty staff for local universities
under human resourse management approach.
- Building professional standardable competency of faculty staff for
local universities with 4 standards and 14 criteria.
- Raising the qualified status of faculty staff and pointing out the
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges of management of
faculty staff of local universities today.
- Proposing and stating the effectiveness of management solutions of
faculty staff under human resources management approach to improve the
quality of faculty staff of local universities.
Chapter 1
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ON FACULTY STAFF MANAGEMENT
OPERATIONS UNDER HUMAN RESOURCE APPROACH
1.1. Research overview
- Higher education faculty staff
Through their work, the researchers at home and abroad have
confirmed the important role of faculty staff. Many works of foreign authors
show systemized details related to faculty quality, standards, criteria of
competence, the charaters of a good faculty, requirements for a newgeneration faculty in the context of globalization and international
integration, the preferential policies, professional development.. etc; policies
and experiences of countries in developing faculty staff.
Management and development operations of faculty staff in higher
education institutions of Vietnam have been selected as research topics by
PhD students.
- Local universities and Management operations of faculty staff of
local universities

- Formed from industrialized countries so the models mostly colored
industrial human resources management.
- For each model, depending on the purpose of the author, the contents
of human resources management such as recruitment, reward motivation,
training, creating working environment... is the preferred choice; has various
advantages.
- The contents of the Model of Overall human scenarios involve
overall personnel assessment appropriately to research, could be applied in
higher education administration generally, especially managing Vietnam
local universities today.
- Almost models discuss about employee training, human resource
development through training, but does not care about the role of education
and training.


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- Nadler’s model is suitable as a basis for theoretical frames of the
thesis and propose solutions for managing faculy staff in local universities.
However, the good ones of the Models are used in research conducting
process suitablely.
1.3. Local University faculy staff management operations under
human resource management
1.3.1. Managing
Managing is an oriented and purposeful action of a manager to whom
are managed in an organization aiming to make the organization operate and
achieve its purpose.
1.3.2. Local university
A local university is a multi-level and interdisciplinary universities;
belongs to the local government (LG), established by the LG, partial funding

1.3.4.5. Training and retraining
1.3.4.6. Motivational work for fafculty staff.
1.4. Present context of higher education and the problems faced
by local university faculty staff
1.4.1. Political, economic - social context
In the present context, "Developing and improving the quality of higgqualitìied human resources is a strategic breakthrough, the decisive factor to
promote the development and application of science and technology,
restructuring the economy, changingeconomic growth models and is also the
most competitive advantage, which guaranted for the fast, efficient and
sustainable development for the economy in general, the economic zones and
industrial parks in the local areas - where have been impacted by
geographical distance, the difference in infrastructure between regions in the
shift of human resources - in particular is the important responsibility for
universities, especially local universities.
1.4.2. Higher education context
International effects: The process of globalization has made the higher
education environment become a part of the "flat world" and the world
education market open to all countries, for all global citizens. In this process,
more dynamic Higher education is more attracted to students and stronger.
Domestic effects: In the context of globalization, international
integration, with the development of the knowledge economy, Vietnam
Higher education plays a key role in the national education system. However,
should be admitted that, Vietnam Higher education has lagged behind
countries in the world and in the region.
Current hot problems in the governance of higher education in
Vietnam is resolving the balance between quantity and quality: the quantity
of universities and infrastructure quality; percentage of students/ 1,000
population and the quality of training; percentage of teachers/ students and
the output quality of students ...
1.4.3. Difficulties and challenges for the development of local

1.5. The factors affecting to local university faculty management
operations today
- Objective factors: State high requirement on standards, quality and
capacity of local university faculty, Leaders' awareness of the role and
position of the local university for local development, Interest of local
leaders on the development of general staff, faculty in particular, Regulations
on recruitment faculty, Institutional autonomy forfaculty staff development,
staff - attracting, Remuneration policy of the local People's Committee ...etc.
- Subjective factors: Awareness of institution’s leaders about the
importance of faculties, The promulgation and implementation of the
institution’s policies to create an environment for faculty development, Selfteaching staff motivation development, qualifications, qualities and abilities
of faculty staff ...etc.


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Conclusions for Chapter 1
1). Theory of human resources, management of human resources is
very necessary and important to continue researching on the contents related
to local university faculty staffmanagement operations under the
management of human resources approach.
2). Local university faculty staff management operations under the
management of human resources approachincludes the following: Planning
for faculty staff, Recruitment and Selection, Using, Evaluation, Training and
retraining, Motivational working environment for faculty staff.
These contents should be related to institution’s development
strategies and objectives.
3). In the trend of world and Vietnam Higher education, universities in
general, Vietnam local universities in particular have gone through many
difficulties and challenges, specially to isues related to faculty staff.

universities on a total of 11 localities, accounting for 23.1%; The Northern
mountainous area has 2 universities (7.7%), the South has 3 universities
(11.5%), The Mekong Delta Region has 5 universities (19.2%). The Northern
Central Region and Central Coastal Region has the most with 10 universities,
accounting for 38.5%, the Central Highlands region has no public
universities.
Proportion of local universities on geographic areas
23.100%
7.700%
11.500%
19.200%

38.500%

The Red River Delta Region
The Northern Mountainous Area
The South
The Mekong Delta Region
The Northern Central Region and Central Coastal Region

2.1.3. On University names
The names of local universities reflects the local nature: the University
is a general reflection of the university kind; Associated with the name of the
province, the city or the landmarks or local famous cultural figures.
2.1.4. Mission and vision
- Mission: Offering multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary training
courses; providing qualified human resources in science, technology,
economics, social education and humanities;being the center of scientific
research, technology transfer to serve the socio-economic development of the
province andthe city at college, university, and graduate levels; providing

2.3.2. Survey results
2.3.2.1. The Current situation of the teaching staff in local universities
Table 2.6. Structure of teaching staff in local universities in comparison
with the whole country one in 2014
TT
The whole country Local universities
Quantity
%
Quantity
%
1
Total faculties
65.664
6.730
2
Female
35.653
54,3
4089
60,8
3
PhD
10.424
15,9
517
7,7
4
MA
37.090
56,5

complying with the policies and laws of the State, and the MOET
regulations.
- Faculties in local universities have good professional expertise, but
the capacity of IT applications and foreign languages for teaching and
scientific research is still poor. Besides, interdisciplinary and international
integration knowledge in the present situation needs to be enhanced to meet
the requirements of teaching and international integration.
- For university faculties, in addition to good teaching methods, they
need to know to explore textbooks and learning materials; use technology
and modern teaching facilities to improve the quality of teaching. This is the
weakness of current local university faculties.
- Faculties in local universities are struggling in having appropriate
research topics to be approved by relevant authorities at all levels. Having a
low interdisciplinary knowledge level is also difficult for local university
faculties in applying for the research topics related to the local socioeconomic development.
- However, scientific research activities have not fully played its
important role in supporting the teaching work of faculties in local
universities.
- Providing guidance and support to Masters and PhD students is the
strongest motivation for university faculties in conducting scientific research.
However, at present, a lot of the local universities are not able to open


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undergraduate or graduate fields of study due to lack of required staff. This is
a big disadvantage for faculties and educational managers in local
universities.
- For faculties in local universities, the community service capacity is
very important. Currently, faculties are not well developing their full roles

and community service
Evaluation contents

Rank

Bad
0.2
9.8

3.1
2.42

1
3

7.5
15.3
13.6

2.48
2.22
2.5

2
5
4

2.3.2.2. Current Situation of local university faculty staff Management
today
In the six contents of management, the method of using the teaching

X
Rank
2.49
3
2.32
2.55
2.29
2.45
2.50
2.43

5
1
6
4
2

Implementation
results
X
Rank
2.39
2
2.18
2.48
2.26
2.38
2.39
2.35


- The development of faculties in those universities has always been
considered an important strategy in the development of the university by
university leaders
- Faculties in local universities are mainly local people, so they should
be very highly aware of personal responsibility for the development of local
human resources and having a long term working committment with the
university.
- Faculties in local universities have political qualities, morality, love of
the job, andmostly graduatingfrom pedagogical universities or having teachiing
certificates, so they have strong professional expertise
- Lecturer recruitment in local universities have been conducted in
compliance with the regulations of the State and Local government
- Local universities are funded by the provincial People's Committee
for regular activities, actively working in sending faculties for domestic or
foreign training, being entitled to use regular budget expenditures for training
and retraining faculties.


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2.3.3.2. Weakness
- In term of structure, numbers of local university faculty is lacking,
the rate of a faculty/students are not standardized in training fields; the rate
of faculty, who holds a PhD, the title of Professor and Associate Professor is
low.
- Professional and Researchable capabilities of the faculty is uneven
not-yet requirable.
- The faculty planning activities mainly perform are superficial, with a
formality, integrated into administrative reports of academic years or the
begining report of political terms.


- Higher - level knowlege improving is the task of a faculty but for
various objective and subjective reasons, the faculties at local university
rarely have a wish to study for a doctorate if not required.
- Inviting visiting scientists in research institutes, universities, high
ranked and retired faculties to teach and help younger faculties how to do
scientific research is effcicient but very difficult to implement regularly.
- The limited budget for scientific research activities of the
universities, from common sources, is not enough for scientific research
projects of large scale and can be assured for faculties to earn from doing
research. Limited budgets lead to affected quality, theoritical but not
appliable research works indirectly affecting the quality of teaching staff.
- Assessment on local university faculties is now quite diverse in
forms and often happened. However, the impact of assessment result is not
efficient.
- Conditions of facilities for teaching and scientific research affects the
quality of faculties’ work. However, at present, local universities are focused
primarily on facilities serving teaching but not infrastructure for scientific
research.
- The level of expertise, foreign language level and limited ability to
use them lead the faclulties to the dificlulties in seeking scholarship
programs, training abroad opportunities; articles published internationally in
English...
2.3.3.3. Opportunities
- Development of the teaching staff in general, university facultiesin
particular is a requirement set by the Party and State in every period of
development, and always gets the priority in the strategic development of
higher education in Vietnam.
- Local universities are seen as one of the most important agencies of
the government structureof PPCs and are high quality training centers of

qualifications (a result of the upgrading from vocational schools and
colleges)
- Implementing training of human resources to serve the local socioeconomic development and the needs of local communities in every stage
leading to difficult structural adjustments in time the structure of teaching
staff currently and affect long-term planning for the teaching
staffdevelopment.
- Low wages for young faculties with the financial expenses related to
qualifications upgrading in training institutions in big cities reduce the
motivation of further higher education for faculties.
- The different levels of support from the province, the university for
university faculties attending PhD training courses also affect learning
motivation of faculties when they compare with other colleagues.
- The trend of “Global Faculties” and free labor market in the ASEAN
Economic Community is moving forward while the foreign language skills
of local university faculties are not qualified.


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- There is no official capacity standard for local university faculties to
provide a basis for the recruitment, assessment, training and improvment of
faculties more efffectively.
- Regulations on standardized faculties titles, as issued by MOET,
require faculties in local universitiesto try their best to be more likely to
beranked as Grade I and II.
Conclusions of Chapter 2
1). The birth of local universities is an inevitable trend, meets the
requirements of learning socialization, development of human resources for
the local site, creates opportunities for people to improve themselves at
different levels of education. This is a correct policy of the Party, State and


7) There are many objective and subjective factors influence faculty’s
postgraduate study, such as self-developed motivation, age, qualification,
material life and impact of the economic market ... Therefore, enacting
appropriate policies to create motivations for local university faculties to
update their knowleage is very important and necessary.
8) In order to better manage local university faculties need a
synchronized system of solutions, related to Local Government, Ministry of
Education and Training, Universities and local university faculties themseves
Chapter 3
SOLUTIONS TO MANAGE FACULTY STAFF IN LOCAL
UNIVERSITIES IN THE CURRENT CONTEXT
3.1. The rules to propose management solutions
3.1.1. The Systemizing principle
3.1.2. The Practical principle
3.1.3. The principle of Ensuring continuity
3.1.4. The principle of Ensuring the effectiveness
3.1.5. The Used- oriented principle
3.2. Solutions to manage faculties in local universities in Vietnam
in the current context
3.2.1. Recommend capacity standards of local university faculty staff
Standard 1. Professional capacity (4 criteria)
Standard 2. Capacity standards of teaching (including 5 criteria)
Standard 3. Research Capacity (Including 2 criteria)
Standard 4. Capacity management; academic community connections
and social community service (3 criteria)
3.2.2. Improve the process of planning and recruiting faculties
- Planning solutions: Developing detailed medium term and short term
plans, assigning experts or professionals who are responsible for planning,
performing the process of planning lectures in the "top-down" manner,

professional titles of faculties
3.2.5. Complete the remuneration policy for the teaching staff (the
university and local government)
Solutions: To supplement a number of policies related to non-wage
incomes; Increase spending for activities related to improving quality of
scientific research of faculties; Provide a "long vacation" every 5 years;
Develop policies to support young researchers through social mobilization;
Amend and supplement the support policiesfor PhD study of faculties; Set up
a support network of academia for faculties of local universities.
3.2.6. Develop a self-responsibility environment for local universities
in the Management of faculties
Solutions: Recommending to local committte leaders to be responsible for
recruiting faculties, Recommending to local committe leaders to be responsible
for academics, Recommending to local committe leaders to be responsible for
implementing research tasks, Decentralization for units in institution to be
responsible for academics, scientific research products and staff recruiting.


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3.2.7. Implement the cooperation of development of teaching staff
between local universities
Solutions: Establishing the National Association of local universities
independently or an association in the Association of Colleges, Universities
of Vietnam; Coordinating to exchange and use faculties in teaching
activities; Coordinating in scientific activities (scientific research and
exchange of scientific information).
3.3. The relationship between the solutions
Seven proposed solutions are comprehensive and advancedly
systematic, related to the content of teaching staff management according to

0.05

18

22.0

41

50.0

28.0

14

17.1

37.0

45.1

28.0


22
6

Numbers of scientific works of
students guided by young
faculties


The examined results have appreciated the necessity and feasibility of
the proposed management solutions to local faculty staff. Also, the thesis has
piloted two activities of the solution "Fostering scientific research capacity of
local faculty staff" at Ha Tinh University. The results have confirmed the
effectiveness of these management activities.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Conclusions
1.1. On the basis of the general research review, the new idea of
studying of the thesis identified is the management of faculties in local
universities.
- The management of faculties in local universities includes the
following things: faculties planning, recruitment and selection of faculties;
use of faculties, training and retraining faculties, evaluation and motivation
of the teaching staff.


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1.2. The Thesis has researched and analyzed the situation of the
teaching staff, teaching staff management and factors affecting the current
management of faculties in local universities:
- Regarding the structure, there is lack of the teaching staff in local
universities, the ratio of faculties/students is not enough; the number of
lectuers, who hold a PhD degree, a title of Associate Professor and Professor,
is still low; the teaching load of faculties is too large and these affect the
quality of education and scientific research negatively.
- The profound expertise, foreign language skills and foreign
languages use ability are very limited, making it difficult for the development
of teaching staff in the scholarship program, and overseas training.
- The planning of faculties development is not developed