Reviewing the process and criteria for professorship - Part 1: The basic professor council: some places are difficult, some are easy?

After the controversy over this year's professor and associate professor candidates being accused of not meeting the standards but still approved by the industry council (YouthOn October 25, education experts reviewed the process and standards for evaluating professors and associate professors in our country today.

Prof. Dr. Pham Quang Minh - editor-in-chief of the Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU - said that the council of professors (GS) at the institution (school) is allowed to be established by the State Council of Professors, based on the academic reputation of that institution as well as the number of scientists there.

Check for authenticity

One of the important tasks of the basic professor title council is to review the authenticity of information from diplomas, certificates to the list of journals and publishers provided by the candidate's profile.

For example, the council can review and compare whether the candidate has taught the declared number of hours, which parts have been taught, whether the accepted scientific research topic follows proper procedures, whether the topics of the theses and dissertations that the candidate has supervised are suitable for the candidate's major...

For example, an associate professor candidate with a major in cultural anthropology can guide a master's thesis on the topic of business culture or cultural management. "In short, the basic professor title council must work very objectively, scientifically, impartially and specifically," said Mr. Minh.

Similarly, Associate Professor Dr. Do Van Dung - Principal and Vice Chairman of the Council of Professors at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technical Education - explained that every year when there is an announcement from the State Council of Professor Titles, some universities begin to allow candidates inside and outside the school to register.

Depending on the number of candidates, the basic GS council will be established with 9-15 members to have enough people to evaluate and criticize. The school can invite domestic and foreign professors and associate professors, or cooperate with other schools to establish this council.

At the first meeting, the council elects a chairman, vice chairman and secretary. In years when there are candidates for the title of professor, the chairman is usually a professor.

At the next meeting, the local GS Council will read and score the candidate files. This can be time-consuming. At the same time, the list of candidates is made public on the school's information page to receive comments and feedback from the community, especially on the candidates' moral qualities.

The basic GS Council has a session to review the scores assigned by each member, see if there are any differences, and then summarize them. Candidates with scores reaching the given threshold will enter the reporting round.

In addition, to assess foreign language proficiency, the school establishes a council, usually chaired by the head of the foreign language department. Candidates take turns presenting and answering questions in foreign languages ​​for this council to assess whether they pass or fail.

Finally, after listening to the report and comments, the members of the basic GS council will vote in secret for each candidate to be considered for the title of Professor or Associate Professor. If qualified, the candidate will make revisions according to the council's comments and continue to send them to the State GS Title Council.

"There are difficult councils, there are easy councils"

According to Mr. Dung, the rejection at the basic round is mainly due to the candidate's limited foreign language ability and insufficient converted scientific work points. The works here include articles, books, scientific research topics...

It is worth noting that each project does not have a fixed score but is graded according to the scale of the State Council of Professors. This means that members of the council can give different scores within the framework. The local Council of Professors will have to finalize these scores, especially for files with large differences.

Mr. Dung commented that the process of evaluating professors and associate professors in Vietnam is currently quite strict, in which the role of the grassroots level is very important because it is the first party to thoroughly evaluate. Mr. Dung added that normally the "difference" between the grassroots professor council and the State professor council is because some councils are easy and some are difficult.

"In addition, the State Council for Professor Titles seems to be afraid of lawsuits, and when there are lawsuits, they often end them harshly. Lawsuits are not uncommon in schools. This year, even the principal of a famous medical school that considers professors has encountered this problem," said Mr. Dung.

Many professors at major universities are under great pressure to do research - Photo: Getty Images

Prof. Dr. Le Tien Thuong - Chairman of the Council of Professors at the University of Technology, Ho Chi Minh City National University - said that this year the Council received applications from 4 candidates for the title of Professor and 9 candidates for the title of Associate Professor. After evaluation, the Council only approved 8 applications for the title of Associate Professor. Most of the candidates failed because they did not meet the standards for scientific works such as books, documents, international articles, etc.

Mr. Thuong said that apart from cases where some basic GS councils do not work properly, the remaining councils rarely have cases of passing the basic round but failing the state round. A few cases occur because the members of the later round of the council are more strict than the previous round, but the difference is usually not too big. In particular, the industry and interdisciplinary GS councils will evaluate many other factors in detail.

According to Mr. Thuong, the strictness of the process of evaluating professors and associate professors is largely due to human weakness, specifically the seriousness of the members of the council. "For the University of Technology in particular, the evaluation stages are very detailed and carefully done.

The review by the basic council is carried out independently, based on the regulations of the State Council for Professor Titles and is usually not influenced by Ho Chi Minh City National University. Even with candidates who are not from the University of Technology but register with this council, we also consider them normally, without bias or making things difficult" - Mr. Thuong said.

In contrast, in the US, Japan, Korea and many European countries, the title of professor is appointed by the university, along with many criteria regarding teaching and research. This regulation aims to give autonomy to the university and bind them to continue contributing to their workplace and academia in general. The title of professor is always accompanied by the workplace, for example "Professor Alexa B. Kimball at Harvard University". If they are no longer at the university or have their academic title revoked, they can no longer be called professor.

Becoming a professor is quite difficult. The Smart Science Career website lists the criteria that the American university professor selection committee often uses to evaluate candidates, such as having appropriate expertise, 5-10 years of work and teaching experience, having prestigious scientific articles, having experience in many international conferences and research projects, having good relationships with the academic community, and the ability to raise research funds.

In Japan and Korea, schools are very careful when appointing professors to match their salary budget. Normally, about 5-10% of PhDs become professors at a school. According to the elimination mechanism, if a professor does not meet the requirements of research and teaching, he or she can be replaced by another candidate. This puts pressure on professors to continue their research.

In Australia, schools often apply different numbers of professors to avoid widespread conferment of titles, and at the same time create reputation for each school through the number of professors they have. In Europe, some countries used to have the title of "professor for life", but now it has been abolished. The reason is that after striving to achieve this lifelong academic title, many people are satisfied and stop doing research.

According to Tuoi Tre online