Academic staff recruitment and development in private universities in Vietnam: in comparison with public universities

Quality of education remains a problem in higher education in Vietnam and can be considered one of the most crucial and greatest challenges that institutions are now facing and which they need to make great efforts to resolve. Among the various factors that influence this is the quality of the teaching staff in higher education institutions. Due to the shortage of highly qualified academic staff, higher education institutions of both public and private are competing both with each other, and with organisations outside the educational sector, in recruiting academic staff. The thesis explores current issues of staffing and academic staff development in private universities in Vietnam, the policies implemented by them to promote academic staff development, and the extent to which these policies have proved to be effective in raising teaching quality. A comparative and qualitative method with multiple case studies was used for the research. Six higher education institutions in Vietnam, three public and three private, were chosen as case studies. Standards of staffing in public institutions were used as the bench mark for the comparative study, as public higher institutions in Vietnam have a longer history of establishment and operation, which have helped them build up cadres of highly qualified and experienced teaching staff. Data on higher education policies and issues relating to academic staff development and the quality of education in these institutions were gathered using a mixed methods approach. The results of the study showed that institutions of both sectors were facing similar issues in recruiting and developing their academic staff. With financial support from government, public universities are more advantageous than private ones in recruiting and retaining academic staff, thus whilst private universities used economic benefits as their core policies, public institutions attracted and retained academic staff by providing them opportunities for professional