Improve teaching capacity at private universities in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam according to Aun-Qa

The effective functioning of the socio-economic system and the achievement of a high level of well-being of the population, as shown by the advanced experience of developed countries, is primarily ensured by improving the quality of the higher education system ( Salmi, 2018 ). High-quality higher education that contributes to the development of the cultural and spiritual superstructure of society forms the intellectual basis of human capital as the main productive force of innovative development ( Salmi, 2018 ). In this regard, the quality of higher education in modern conditions should be harmonized with the current needs in the field of economics, technology, science, culture, have an applied character and adapt to the volatility of the socio-economic system in the context of globalization. Back in 2005, before the universities of Vietnam, by the approval of Resolution No. 14/2005/NQ-CP On substantial and comprehensive renewal of Vietnam’s tertiary education in the 2006-2020 period ( Van Khai, 2005 ), the priority of internationalization and innovative development was determined and by the end of 2020 enter in the ranking of 200 universities in the world. The Vietnamese government pays a lot of attention to education reforms. Outdated curricula, low quality of education do not allow producing highly qualified personnel, and the country needs professionals. The rapid growth of higher education in the Asian countries has brought forth challenges in the higher education sector, including but not limited to “shortages of qualified instructional staff (and) a need to improve instructional quality” ( Liu, 2016 ). It is considered that although quality assurance system is never built from scratch, the normal implementation process is a linear one ( Shah and Nair, 2016 ): new tools and procedures are developed and therefore some conditions are needed in order to support organization to adapt to these new tools and procedures.

should improve students’ transferable skills to enhance their chances of employment ( Demombynes and Testaverde, 2017 ). According to Tran and Marginson (2018a) , good teaching involves giving clear explanation through interesting lessons and providing useful and timely feedback. As rightly observed by Pham (2018b) , unless teachers provide effective instruction and create classroom environment conducive to learning, students will not achieve at high levels even when essential material inputs are available and curriculum is relevant. According to Thuy Thi and Yi-Fang (2014) , the sense of responsibility and high level of engagement between students and teachers makes quality assurance effective. Teacher commitment is one of the quality values in congruence among higher education stakeholders ( Le and Hayden, 2017 ). One of the roles of the teachers is monitoring and evaluating students learning. The learning environment is positive when it is favourable for students’ meaningful and productive learning. In such an environment as noted by Nhat and Bich (2017) , “educational programs, materials and procedures are designed to meet the needs of each student”.

The main disadvantage of Vietnam’s higher education is that the standard of training does not meet the socioeconomic development criteria. If there is no drastic and successful solution, the country will lose its competitive edge in terms of standard and human capital ( Tran and Marginson, 2018a ).

Currently, the majority of state and private universities in Vietnam has been implementing QA activities in accordance with the regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam, but the effectiveness of this activity is not high has no significant impact on the improvement of training quality because it does not meet international standards on QA and is in line with the development of these schools ( Le, 2016 ). The model and the level of QA of universities such as the AUN-QA model of the Southeast region network of universities are the best options because it conforms to the minimum international standards and corresponds to the level of the current development of higher education system in the country ( Longpradit et al., 2019 ). AUN-QA Network is established as the ASEAN quality assurance network in higher education with the responsibility to promote quality assurance in higher education institutions, raise the quality of higher education, and collaborate with both regional and international bodies for the benefit of the ASEAN community ( AUN-QA, 2020 ). To implement this idea, programs of the 200 best universities in the world were selected, occupying high positions in the world ranking. Over the past 10 years, educational programs based on advanced training courses have achieved their goals. In particular, courses introduced advanced training of the teaching staff, expanded scientific research, consolidated objects of international cooperation. The goal of the project is that by 2020 higher education in Vietnam must become competitive and adapted to a socialist-oriented market mechanism, and several Vietnamese universities must achieve world-class level through improving higher education quality assurance systems ( Nguyen, 2017 ). In 2003, quality assurance through mandatory accreditation mechanism for both institutions and programmes was officially introduced into Vietnam’s higher education. Several studies observed and discussed certain aspects of Vietnam’s accreditation ( Do et al., 2017 ; Nguyen, 2018 ; Pham, 2018a , 2018b , 2018c ; Westerheijden et al., 2010 ).

However, the active introduction of advanced technologies in private and public universities in Vietnam is faced with the problem of unpreparedness and inconsistency of the potential of the teaching staff in the higher education system, which in turn inhibits the process of improving the quality of education. In view of this, the question of the need for didactics of the current level of the potential of teachers in the universities of Vietnam to be ready for the introduction of progressive educational technologies AUN-QA is actualized. This study was aimed at developing a toolkit for assessing the quality level of the organization of the educational and cognitive process, stimulating interest in knowledge in the educational process on the example of private universities in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh City is the locality with the highest number of private universities in the country. The subject of the research are private universities the training level of teachers of private Universities is generally low compared to requirements and compared to public schools. According to some schools, finding a teacher with a high-level teaching degree is quite difficult, especially with some specific majors, many people do not want to pursue academic titles such as the other arts and creative fields, and they consider a more practical work capacity. Another important issue of the faculty of private universities is the unbalanced teacher structure. The number of faculty members with academic titles, degrees, and experience is high in age (some retired in other schools and agencies) and less active and creative; some young teachers are creative, highly motivated but have little experience and no academic titles. That makes a large number of schools not develop, even threatened to not exist ( Hanh, 2020 ). Therefore, improving the quality of teachers in the higher education system with measures that are scientific and in line with the practice is one of the urgent jobs.