VIETNAM, NEWS ANALYSIS, MARCH 4, 2000.

For the last 45 years in North Vietnam and 25 years in all Vietnam, the Vietnam Communist Party regime has incessantly boasted about their education system and cultural enhancement, which they said were excellent and comprehensive. But in fact, the regime disclosed the contrary in many state-owned publications.

As to literacy, Vietnam Communist leaders have often claimed that 99 percent Vietnamese were able to read and write. But in many recent reports Hanoi government had to admit that 7 to 9 percent of the general population are still illiterate, or unable to read or write. In Vietnam the official language is Vietnamese, written in Latin alphabet, which takes a first-grader from 3 to 6 months to read and write, and most third-graders could read and write what they understand.

On February 29, the party-controlled newspaper Lao Dong (Labor) on February 29 published an article about how would-be-graduated college students were desperately hunting for jobs. In March every year, applications for employment soar high as the result of ten of thousands students who are about to graduate from universities, colleges and high schools.

The president of the Hanoi University Nguyen Kim Truy, quoted in Lao Dong Newspaper, predicts that about more than two thousand students from his university will graduate this year. Meanwhile, the president of the private university Dong Do, Mr. Tran Huu Dac, said his school would have about two thousand graduated at the same time.

According to a figure not made official, there would be approximately 20,000 graduates this year who resolutely stick to the capital city to find good jobs instead of returning to their home towns. Saigon has the similar situation with about 40,000 graduates looking for jobs.

The Lao Dong estimates that only 30 percent of the college graduates are employed. At the office of labor and employment of Lao Dong newspaper, only 10 percent of the applicants found a place to work. The Lao Dong predicts that the year 2000 could see thousands, even ten thousands of unemployed graduates .

According to Mrs. Nguyen Thi Tuc, director of Rajci, a center for employment, said every application document included the three required papers (a graduate certificate, an English proficiency certificate, and a computer operating capability certificate). However, a very low number of applicants were hired among ten thousands of those who submitted applications. Similar situation is seen in other employment centers.

Vietnamese émigrés who were visiting Vietnam lately, confirm the story. Many hundreds medical doctors graduated from medicine schools in Vietnam during the last decade are still working at non-medical jobs far below their capability while shortage of physicians in rural public health services are more and more serious. The young doctors are found working as secretaries, clerks, salesmen in the private sector. Many even have to accept works as day laborers to earn a living without hope of ever being employed as physicians.

The most possible reasons are somewhat easy to understand. Too many students are admitted to a large number of colleges and universities, disregarding expected available positions when they will have graduated.

Besides, the Communist party still maintains policies that grant children of faithful or high ranking party members numerous favors, including priorities in admission, bonus marks in periodic tests as well as final exams, and priority to be given jobs in state sector. On the other hand, budget for education, public health or social welfare services, each takes no more than 10 percent of national budget. Most of the "Cadre's children," so-called by common Vietnamese, take up a part in every class. They graduate bachelor degree and even doctor degree without the least comprehension of the profession, let alone practice.

The situation is aggravated by the actual quality of education under the Communist regime.

The Lao Dong newspaper brought out some typical cases. Nguyen Thanh Hai, a graduate in economics with English language certificate class C along with other papers, was rejected by a joint enterprise after the first few English questions in a primary interview. Nguyen Hoai Thu, Nguyen Kim Chinh, who had similar degree in English and computer science, failed in the first interview.

Anh Thi Company in Saigon wanted a lot of employees of Bachelor degree, but in February only one among scores of candidates was hired. A law firm in Hanoi opened for 3 positions, and received 45 applications from the college students. Only one was accepted. Almost all of the employers said the capacity of the students was very low.

According to Lao Dong newspaper, the University of Social and Humanity in Saigon will look closely into and carefully authenticate all high school diplomas of students attending its classes. All students have to submit new copies of their high school diplomas, certified true copy by the issuing authorities, instead of administrative offices such as district or village people's committees, or notaries public. In the past decades, too many copies certified by administrative authorities were found falsified.

The new decision could hardly be applied all over the countries with 190 universities and colleges. The total number of their students may reach over 200,000. A number of them might have been enrolled with forged documents that would take years to verify, an impossible task.

The Lao Dong article also reports on the investigation into the so-called "on-the-job college courses," conducted by the Hanoi Ministry of Education, mainly at classes of economics, commerce, law, foreign languages and others in 7 northern provinces.

The investigating team has reviewed 2,673 diplomas and revealed 242 cases, in which the students - party and government cadres and officials, army officers - have been suspected of submitting illegal diplomas (from 21.6 percent of students of the courses in Thanh Hoa province and as high as 35.5 percent in Thai Nguyen).

Illegality ranges from true form, true seal and true signature, but name of the student is tampered with, or the name is of an unqualified person.

In the system of supplementary education, a cadre or official still holds the current position while attending courses of general education at special schools with reduced curriculum. A cadre or an official, dropped out from an elementary school at second grade in his or her childhood, could attend the supplementary courses in 4 school years to be awarded a high school diploma certifying that the student has successfully completed study of 10 grades - from 3rd grade to 12th grade.

Those who graduate from such courses usually are thus helped by the party to be qualified for positions that required their holders to have the college degree.

Foreigners working in Vietnam often met engineers, doctors, specialists, military officers of the category, who are the sources of corruption, mismanagement, red tape and inefficiency.

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