The story of a person who never attended high school but obtained a high school diploma, then studied two university degrees and currently holds a Doctor of Laws degree is perhaps one of the most typical examples of paradoxes. logic and comedy in the Vietnamese education system. This incident once again rang alarm bells and not only raised a series of questions about integrity in education but also exposed worrying gaps in the management and supervision processes of relevant agencies. competence.
A normal person can clearly see that in order to achieve such achievements without having to go through the basic learning steps like many others, this PhD student only took about 2 years, there must be doubts about this. The possibility of cheating, using relationships or using tricks to obtain degrees from prestigious universities with decades of history.
Worse, this phenomenon does not just stop at the individual level but also reflects a more serious problem in the country's education system. When people lacking basic educational background can graduate from university or even become masters and then PhDs, this shows a warning sign of weakness in quality control and monitoring. amount of education. Education gets a bad reputation if degrees are awarded easily and do not truly reflect the learner's abilities.
Does the doctoral student have the special talent to overcome the many rigorous procedures and processes to complete the doctoral thesis? Reality says talent cannot replace basic knowledge, especially in the fields of academia and research. It is difficult for a person, no matter how smart, to complete academic requirements without undergoing serious study and training.
What the thesis of PhD student Vuong Tan Viet (Thich Chan Quang) showed was a lack of fundamental knowledge such as not being able to distinguish between legal "obligation" (obligation) and responsibility (responsibility), confusion between the concepts of citizen and human. This has led to research objectives and approaches as well as content that have almost no practical value.
This scandal shows two things. One is that this PhD student received non-transparent support from the training system, and two is that the system failed to monitor and evaluate fairly and objectively. Both of these possibilities show a lax management of training quality by educational institutions.
The responsibility that cannot be ignored is the responsibility of the guiding team and the Thesis Defense Council. These people directly participate in the process of training, evaluating and accepting doctoral students' dissertations. However, they did not fulfill their responsibilities, did not discover the gaps in the graduate students' basic knowledge, or perhaps due to some subtle reasons, they lost the objectivity of the evaluation process at the university. thesis defense ceremony.
The fact that a doctoral student does not have a basic academic background but still successfully defends his PhD thesis not only harms the reputation of the training institution but also reduces the value of academic qualifications in general.
Finally, it is impossible not to mention the responsibility of management agencies in monitoring and controlling education quality. If the process of examining and approving degrees, especially at a high level such as a PhD, is carried out in a rigorous and transparent manner, is it possible for a person without a secondary educational background to still achieve such high academic achievements.
Here, the story of higher education autonomy and accountability for quality needs to be considered to close the gaps in supervision and inspection by management agencies.
In fact, the incident of Mr. Thich Chan Quang is not unique. Previously, some people had their university, master's, and even doctorate degrees stripped away. This shows that the current inspection and supervision mechanism has serious flaws, giving fraudulent or non-transparent practices the opportunity to exist and develop.
This is also a wake-up call for Vietnamese education.
To solve this problem, it is necessary to continue comprehensive innovation, from strengthening academic autonomy but tightening accountability, to training and assessment processes, to supervision and control of management agencies. to ensure transparency, fairness and integrity in the education system.
