Level of autonomy on the management of vocational schools () in hanoi city, vietnam

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam SOUTHERN LUZON STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines LEVEL OF AUTONOMY ON THE MANAGEMENT OF VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS IN HANOI CIT

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

Socialist Republic of Vietnam

SOUTHERN LUZON STATE UNIVERSITY

Republic of the Philippines 

LEVEL OF AUTONOMY ON THE MANAGEMENT

OF VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS IN HANOI CITY, VIETNAM

A RESEARCH PROPOSAL PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE SCHOOL SOUTHERN LUZON STATE UNIVERSITY LUCBAN, QUEZON, PHILIPPINES

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY S.R VIETNAM

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE

DOCTORS IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING Introduction

Autonomy of institutions in the field of education is understood as self-determination and self-responsibility under the laws and the requirements of society for all its activities such as finance, personnel and organizational structure, training programs, strategic planning, etc

Autonomy does not mean relinquishing management from the state In contrast, autonomy given to schools is considered as one of the most important solutions to bring motivations, new life for training institutions to improve the efficiency, educational quality and social responsibility of the schools

Vietnam is in the process of institutional transformation from the planning - bureaucracy - subsidy economy to the market economy completely Accordingly, education and training is not only seen as a public utility sector, but also considered an important service sector that has been contributing significantly to the sustainable development of market economy

Background of the study

The developments towards a different model of governance in many advanced societies have been characterized with the phrase “regulatory state” (Moran 2002), i.e a state where direct public ownerships is replaced by regulating more autonomous units As a general rule, vocation schools have become more autonomous – free from line-itemized budgets, input control, and detailed prescriptions on curricula (Santiago et al 2008) The greater autonomy is at the same time balanced by new accountability mechanisms (Santiago et al 2008) Therefore, the autonomy of the schools is limited to make the selection of the training majors as well as to determine the suitable training model upon requests of the labour markets and training capacities of schools actively

At present, Vietnam doesn’t have enough the particular laws to encourage the enterprises and schools to “shake hands/ cooperate” closely so as to train students to meet the demands of the labour market Schools still train students with their own programs without being concerned much about what the labour market requires The stagnations, the inactiveness of the schools are affected directly by the management methods, which are lack of the motivation and exist the bureaucracies of the managers and leaders

Currently, autonomy is inevitable trend of the policy orientation in the development

of education and occupational education sector in Vietnam Autonomy can be considered

as a key tool to reform and revive the occupational education system in Vietnam

This research will also mention some experiences in developing the occupational education policies in some advanced countries Based on that, this study will give out useful lessons to develop the policy framework of occupational education sector in Vietnam

Statement of the Problem

• The basic information exploited from the interviewees under the angles of:

− Ages

− Qualifications

− Job positions

− Gender

− Working experiences in education & training field

• What is the existing level of autonomy on management of Vocation schools in

Hanoi city, Vietnam in items of:

− Organizational autonomy

− Financial autonomy

− Staffing autonomy

− Academic autonomy

• Which of the autonomy factors were enjoined much or least of the vocational

schools as perceived by respondents?

• What should be the extent of autonomy on the given indicators that may be

spelled out by Private and Public vocational schools?

• What plan program can be developed to support the autonomy to develop

professional education institutions?

Hypotheses

There is no significant different on perceived autonomy by group of respondent and their profile

CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATUES AND STUDIES

This chapter will present concepts and theories that have significant effects on the conduct of the study Review of related literatures and study will present what had been written about the subject Finally a Conceptual framework that will aid the conduct of this research work will be established

Concept on Education and Vocational school

• Occupational education (education based on occupation or employment, also

known as Technical Vocational Education and Training - TVET) is education that prepares people for specific trades, crafts and careers at various levels from

a trade, a craft, technician, or a professional position in engineering, accountancy, nursing, medicine, architecture, pharmacy, law etc In Vietnam, Occupational education sector is a system that includes professional secondary schools, vocational schools, vocational colleges and other vocational institutions

• Vocational school (or trade school, or career school), providing vocational

education, is a school in which students are taught the skills needed to perform a particular job Traditionally, vocational schools have not existed to further education in the area of liberal arts, but rather to teach only job-specific skills, and as such have been better considered to be institutions devoted to training, and not liberal arts education In the the scope of this dissertation, concept of vocational school in Vietnam is meant to be a institution of Occupational Education System

The problems of autonomy and autonomy schools

• Autonomy: Autonomy is an importance content of in the field of organizational

management (de Boer, 2010; Jongboed, 2010) It is understood that the right to making-decisions its-self of an organization Of course, autonomy must be tied

to their accountability for the consequences of this decision with the authorities, their stakeholders and the community

• Effective autonomy: Autonomy can make the environment necessary for the

proper functioning of the Autonomy -Assessment - Accountability framework

To work properly, autonomy of the school must have political support at the central and local levels, it should have a legal framework that allows autonomy

to function unimpeded, and should have the assent of teachers If teachers are not in agreement what happens in the classroom will be very different from what autonomy intended (Arcia, Porta, and Laguna, 2004)

• School autonomy:

As the report by the Committee on Autonomy and accountability of higher education establishments of the Central Advisory Committee on Indian

Education (2005), autonomy is understood as a system of regulations on the

decentralization in decision making of the superior to the subordinates to encourage their creativeness and activeness in order to obtain the higher efficiency in management

School autonomy is a form of school management in which schools are given decision-making authority over their operations, including the hiring and firing of personnel, and the assessment of teachers and pedagogical practices School management under autonomy may give an important role to the School Council - representing the interests of parents - in budget planning and approval,

as well as a voice/vote in personnel decisions By including the School Council

in school management, school autonomy fosters accountability (Di Gropello

2004, 2006; Barrera, Fasih and Patrinos, 2009)

The studies of Thomas Estermann, Terhi Nokkala & Monika Steinel (2010) gave out the dimension of school autonomy with four factors and its criteria in Table 2.2

Other studies of Estermann & Nokkala (2009), Thomas Estermann (2011), Yu-Ling Hsu Flora (2012) and sources from Eurydice (2007) pointed out the specific contents for each criteria that are described in Table 2.2 The specific contents of this description are also shown in Appendix A: Questionnaire Checklist of this study

Table 2.2: Dimension of School autonomy

Overview on status of education system and school autonomy in Vietnam

• Structure of Vietnam education system and its actives: It presented in this

dissertation (page 34 – 37)

• Occupational Education Institutions: It shown the history of establishment and

development of the occupational education institution in Vietnam from French colonialism period to now

• School Autonomy in Vietnam: Presenting of the basic contents of Decree No

43/2006/ND-CP, dated 25/4/2006 of the Government, identified autonomy, self-responsibility for tasks, organizational arrangements, staffing and financing of public schools at three levels: (i) self ensure all of operating costs: the school has revenue greater than or equal to the regular operating costs; self-ensure all

of regular costs for their activities; (ii) self-ensure a part of the cost of operating: school have income to self-ensure from 10% to less than 100% of the cost of regular operating, the rest are allocated by the state budget (iii) depends entirely

on the state budget: income of the school is less than 10% of the cost of regular operating, or no income; all of regular operating cost will be ensure by the state budget

Related studies (It is presented detail in dissertation)

Conceptual framework

Figure 2.6 Research model for assessment of level of autonomy on the management of

vocation schools in Hanoi, Vietnam

Financial autonomy

Staffing autonomy

Academic autonomy

LIBERATING

OF SCHOOL ACTIVITIES

School

Autonomy

Organisational autonomy

ACTIVITIES

Independent Variables Dependent Variable

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Research Design

This study was designed primarily to use the tools and methods of quantitative analysis to evaluate the autonomy practices in vocation school in Hanoi city and propose innovative solutions for the improving managing autonomy in those Vocation schools

Subject of the study

It includes public school and private school in Hanoi city, Vietnam In which 184 managers whose is member of managing school and 355 respondents are teacher or lecturers who teaching at those vocation schools Their responses on the existing level of autonomy on management of Vocation schools were evaluated, as well as the encountered problems (difficulties) Recommendations to support the autonomy to develop professional education in vocation school were identified to solve the problems

Statistical treatment

Some qualitative and quantitative criteria such as: gender, age, department, position, working experiences which was processed through frequency or distributed percentage The table 3.3 below shows that the needed data and the treatment required processing it

Table 3.3 Type of data and methods of gathering and processing

I Profile of respondents  Frequency Count, Percentage  Survey 

II Respondents’ perception  Weighted Mean, ranking  Survey 

III The different on perceived

autonomy by group of

respondent and their profile. 

ANOVA – one way  Survey 

IV Difficulties encountered in

the autonomy actives in

vocation school in Hanoi city  

Description  Survey 

CHAPTER 4 PRESENTATION ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA

In this chapter gathered data were presented, analyzed and interpreted in order to answer the problems and sub problems posted in this research

Assessment of the respondents on the existing level of autonomy on management of

Vocation schools in Hanoi city

Table 4.2.3: The existing level of autonomy on management of Vocation schools

in Hanoi city in terms of Identifying of Organizational autonomy

Indicators 

Public vocation schools

Private vocation schools

Over-all

1 Selection procedure for the executive

2 Selection criteria for the executive head 3.12 AV 3.05 AV 3.09 AV

3 Dismissal of the executive head 2.86 AV 2.62 AV 2.74 AV

4 Term of office of the executive head 3.29 AV 3.31 AV 3.3 AV

5 External members in school governing

6 Capacity to decide on academic

7.Capacity to create legal entities 3.4 HI 3.3 AV 3.35 AV

The autonomy of institutions of vocational training schools in Hanoi are evaluated

at the average, many criteria are undervalued This shows that there are many limitations in expanding democracy, strengthening accountability and autonomy of the organizational structure of schools This problems should be overcome Specifically: Review both of the external and internal of the schools to select their managers; Strengthening the role of the school in the making-decision processing to appoint or dismiss their managers; Appointment or dismissal of managers based on the capacity, quality and efficiency of their operating; Upgrade the role of School Councils and additional external members on the

Table 4.2.6:

Mean Distribution of Responses on the existing level of autonomy on management of Vocational schools in Hanoi in terms of to Identifying of Financial autonomy

Indicators

Public vocation schools

Private vocation schools

Over-all

Mean VI Mean VI Mean VI 1.Length and type of public funding 2.84 AV 3.04 AV 2.94 AV 2.Ability to keep surplus 2.90 AV 2.98 AV 2.94 AV 3.Ability to borrow money 3.09 AV 3.07 AV 3.08 AV 4.Ability to own buildings 2.91 AV 2.75 AV 2.84 AV 5.Ability to charge tuition Fees 3.01 AV 2.94 AV 2.98 AV

Sum up assessment of financial autonomy of vocational schools in Hanoi, both groups of respondents agreed that the indicators of financial autonomy did not meet the their wishes, there are many content needs to improve The State have had new policies that aim to promote financial autonomy of the schools But it exist the complex regulations and unreasonable management policies Awareness of managers about financial autonomy in the vocational schools is still limited They do not really understand how to effectively use financial autonomy to develop their schools Therefore, the implementation of the financial autonomy of vocational schools in Hanoi was not successful

Table 4.2.9: Mean Distribution of Responses on the existing level of autonomy on management of Vocational schools in Hanoi in terms of to Identifying of Staffing autonomy

Indicators

Public vocation schools

Private vocation schools

Over-all

1 Capacity to decide on recruitment

procedures (senior academic/senior

administrative staff)

3.06 AV 2.86 AV 2.96 AV

2 Capacity to decide on salaries

(senior academic/senior administrative

staff)

2.98 AV 2.8 AV 2.9 AV

3 Capacity to decide on dismissals

(senior academic/senior administrative

staff)

3.115 AV 3.12 AV 3.12 AV

4.Capacity to decide on promotions

(senior academic/senior administrative

staff)

2.67 AV 2.76 AV 2.72 AV