Conference “How to use graduates survey data to support governance reform and quality assurance at universities”
From June 22 to June 25, 2021, the project “Monitoring Trends In Vietnamese graduates’ Employment” (MOTIVE) has organized a conference on “How to use graduates survey data to support governance reform and quality assurance at universities”. The conference was chaired by Vietnam National University of Agriculture. Within the context of the complicated development of the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference took place online via the Zoom platform.
Attending the conference were project members from Vietnamese higher education institutions and European partners. The Vietnamese institutions include Ministry of Education and Training, Hanoi University; Hanoi Institute of Post and Telecommunications Technology, National University of Arts Education, Thai Nguyen university, Vietnam National University of Agriculture, Hanoi University of Home Affairs, Hanoi Tourism College, Ha Long University; Academy of Journalism and Communication; Hanoi Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (Hanoisme). In this conference, there were the participation of 03 new members, including Tay Bac University, Phu Xuan University and Ha Tay Community College. In addition, there was also the attendance of Ho Chi Minh City Open University – an associate partner, and the guest was Nguyen Tat Thanh University.
The European partners include AlmaLaurea Interuniversity Consortium, Seville University, National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation ANECA (Spain).
Attending the seminar, from Hanoi University, were Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Trao – Rector, Ms. Dang Thi Phuong Thao – Director of Center for Italian Language and Culture and Cooperation Development – National Coordinator of the MOTIVE project and all members of
Opening the conference, Dr. Dorel Manitiu, Project Coordinator of AlmaLaura Interuniversity Consortium, thanked the Vietnamese partners for actively implementing project activities to ensure progress. He valued the great effort and commitment of each member university, despite the complicated development of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Dorel Manitiu also delivered his special thanks to HANU, to Principal Nguyen Van Trao, Ms. Dang Thi Phuong Thao, Mr. Nguyen Hoang Duong and the staff involved in HANU’s projects; and emphasizing that HANU is the greatest partner that he has ever worked with.
Within the framework of the conference, the members discussed and agreed on the content of the questionnaire and the graduation survey plan. The questionnaire should be relevant to the project’s objectives and at the same time able to meet the graduate job survey requirements of the Ministry of Education and Training. In addition to the general content, the questionnaire will be customized for each subject and each university. The discussion session on the questionnaire was operated by M.S Ngo Phuong Dung, from Hanoi University. The members have finalized their discussion and agreed on the progress of implementing the questionnaire in the coming time.
Project partners from Europe also had a presentation session and introduced the content of work package No. 4 “Enhancing team capacity and supporting policy reform”. Mr. Pablo Oñate, representative of National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation ANECA; Mr. Rupert Beinhauer from FJ Joanneum University of Applied Sciences; Ms. Silvia Galeazzi and Ms. Claudia Girotti representing AlmaLaurea Interuniversity Consortium; Marina Comacho, International Consulting and Mobility Agency of Seville; presented their experience presented experience in using graduate survey data to support governance and higher education quality reform, mechanisms, quality assurance approaches, and government governance for universities in Vietnam.
Dr. Dorel Manitiu, MOTIVE Project Coordinator and Dr. Vu Thanh Van, Project Coordinator at the Academy of Journalism and Communication presented on communication methods for the project and the development of the project handbook. The project handbook aims to share good experiences of members in project management, encourages businesses and students to register information on the system, survey on graduates’ employment status, etc. Members agreed to assign one staff member to participate in compiling the handbook and it is expected that the handbook will be completed in November 2021.
In the discussion session between nearly 20 representatives of Vietnamese businesses, the members discussed the possibility of connecting businesses and students. The advantage of the project’s http://motive.edu.vn platform is that student information is verified by the universities themselves, therefore the accuracy of information is high. However, the platform and way of presenting students’ CVs on the system still have many limitations such as the interface is not attractive; the content is not arranged properly, etc.
Within the framework of the conference, the project launched a writing contest for students of the universities of the MOTIVE project with the theme “Graduates and the labor market”. Undergraduate and postgraduate students can submit entries on the following topics: Vietnam’s educational, social and economic system; Quality of the higher education system; Human resources for higher education; Labor market structure, advantages and challenges; Higher education under the COVID-19 pandemic; etc. he deadline for submission is November 31, 2021. Students with excellent papers will be funded by the project to attend and present at the project review conference in Bologna (Italy) expected in mid-2022.
The workshop “How to use graduate survey data to support governance reform and quality assurance at universities” was successfully held and achieved the proposed contents. All units participating in the Project have agreed on the plan to organize the next conference, chaired by Hanoi University of Home Affairs (HUHA), which is expected to take place in July 2021 in Quang Nam. For the upcoming time, the project will continue to complete the questionnaire and conduct a survey of graduates. The project will also focus on developing a network of businesses, promoting connections with businesses on the platform http://motive.edu.vn to create suitable job opportunities for students.