The monthly income of Vietnamese professors is the lowest in the world.  They cannot afford to put their energy and intellect into their professional duties, participants at a meeting in HCM City agreed.

Dan Tri, an on-line paper that follows education issues closely, was present at a meeting on efforts to increase the number of professors and assistant professors at HCM City National University and recorded the views of several speakers.

Vietnamese professors’ pay is the ‘lowest in the world’

According to the Government’s information portal, the average pay for Vietnamese professors was $200 a month in 2008, reported Professor Tran Ngoc Them (HCM City University of Social Sciences and Humanity).  And that, said Them, is the world’s lowest salary for professors.  The average monthly pay for professors in Asian countries is $1,000.  If you compare the pay of Vietnamese university faculty to the pay of other professions, Them added the professors bring up the rear.

Dr. Them judged that $200 is just enough to cover one-quarter of the total expenses of professors and their families.

Professor Pham Phu (HCM City University of Technology) explained that thirty percent of the total income of professors is fixed salary; the rest comes from allowances and bonuses.  It would be better if this ratio were reversed, he said.

Phu has urged his university to pay $1,000 per month to its professors, “a reasonable wage,” he said.

Phu argued that in Vietnam, the income of a professional worker with qualifications equivalent to a professor is now some $2,000 per month.  Globally, the salary of a professor is 1.5 to two times higher than average per capita income in developed countries, three to four times higher than average income in middle income countries and five to eight times more than average income in low developed countries.  (Per capita income in Vietnam was officially measured at $1024 in 2008 – ed.)

Vietnam seriously short of professors

Among the 2340 teaching staff teaching 236 subjects at HCM City National University, there are only 152 professors or assistant professors – 0.64 professors per subject.  The shortage of faculty with higher degrees is giving the university a headache – there are no cohorts to fill the places of faculty who are retiring.

Assistant Professor Pham Thi Tuoi (HCM City National University) says in many subject areas there are no assistant professors, and in some subjects, no one with a doctorate, either.  Similarly, at the HCM City University of Technology,  in half the subject areas, none of the lecturers are professors or assistant professors.  This, Tuoi stressed, “is a huge obstacle to the development of the national university in the future.”

Many associate professors and professors must work under people who have not earned doctorates or professorships themselves, and have relatively few years of experience teaching, sometimes only two or three.

HCM City National University, trying to upgrade the quality of its lecturers, has set a target of increasing the number of professors and associate professors by more than 500 percent in the next six years.  Tuoi admitted that the results have not been satisfactory and the target is not feasible.  Trainees sent abroad in many cases do not return to Vietnam after finishing training courses, or return to Vietnam but shift to other work. Some lecturers who have earned PhD’s don’t bother to try to qualify for a professorial appointment.  

Asked the average age of professors at the university, Tuoi said that their average age is high, over 50.  Only 20 percent of the full professors are aged below 50 and the number of assistant professors younger than 40 can be counted on the fingers.