Vietnam: How is the handling of credit-based academic performance of university students?

What is the credit-based training?

Pursuant to Clause 2 of Article 3 of the Regulation on undergraduate education issued together with Circular 08/2021/TT-BGDDT of the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam, credit-based training:

- is a method for training organization where units of study are organized into classes as appropriate to the teaching plan of the training institution, allowing students to accumulate credits of each unit of study and take the training program following their individual learning plans;

- Students failing a mandatory unit of study shall retake that unit of study or take an equivalent unit of study according to regulations of the training program or a substituting unit of study if the unit of study that they fail is no longer taught;

- Students failing an elective unit of study shall retake that unit of study or take another elective unit of study according to regulations of the training program.

How is the handling of credit-based academic performance of university students?

According to Article 11 of the Regulation on undergraduate education issued together with Circular 08/2021/TT-BGDDT, the handling of credit-based academic performance is as follows:

- At the end of each main semester, students will receive an academic warning in any of the following cases:

+ Total number of failed credits in the semester exceeds more than half of the number registered for the semester or total number of failed credits from the beginning of the course is more than 24;

+ Semester average grade is under 0,8 for the first semester of the course or under 1,0 for following semesters;

+ GPA is under 1,2 for first-year students, under 1,4 for second-year students, under 1,6 for third-year students or under 1,8 for the following years.

- Students will be forced to leave school in any of the following cases:

+ Number of academic warnings or level of academic warning received exceeds the permitted amount/ level according to regulations of the training institution;

+ Study duration exceeds the amount of time mentioned in Clause 5 Article 2 of the Regulation on undergraduate education issued together with Circular 08/2021/TT-BGDDT.

* Training institution regulations shall provide for the following matters:

- Application of some conditions for academic warning and permitted number of academic warnings or academic warning level, which shall allow for no more than 2 consecutive warnings;

- Procedures for academic warning and forced leave from school; and announcement of such measures to students;

- Retention of accumulated study results in case of forced leave from school.

How is the handling of credit-based academic performance of university students? (Image from the Internet)

How many credits can students transfer from a previously studied discipline to a new one in the credit-based training system?

Pursuant to Clause 1 of Article 13 of the Regulation on undergraduate education issued together with Circular 08/2021/TT-BGDDT, recognition of study results and credit transfer are specified as follows:

Recognition of study results and credit transfer

1. Study results which a student accumulated from another qualification, academic discipline, training program, course or training institution may be considered for recognition and credits of which may be transferred to units of study of the training program that the student is attending by the training institution providing this program.

2. A specialized council of the training institution shall consider recognition and credit transfer based on comparison of expected learning outcomes, academic content and load, methods for assessment of units of study and conditions for program quality assurance at the following levels:

a) Recognition and transfer for each unit of study;

b) Recognition and transfer for each group of units of study;

c) Recognition and transfer for the whole training program.

3. Training institutions shall publish regulations on recognition of study results and credit transfer. Maximum load that may be recognized and transferred shall not exceed 50% of the minimum academic load of the training program; maximum load that may be recognized and transferred of teacher training programs shall be stipulated by the Ministry of Education and Training.

Each training institution will publicly disclose regulations on the recognition of academic results and the transfer of credits.

The maximum volume of credits to be recognized and transferred shall not exceed 50% of the minimum study volume of the training program. For teacher training disciplines, this shall follow the guidelines of the Ministry of Education and Training.

Thus, students can transfer up to 50% of the minimum study volume of the training program.

How many hours does one credit equal?

Pursuant to Article 7 of Circular 17/2021/TT-BGDDT of the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam:

- A credit shall be equivalent to 50 hours of study by a learner, including time for class attendance, study with instructions, self-study, research, experiences, examinations and assessments;

- For in-class teaching activities, a credit requires at least 15 hours of teaching or 30 hours of practical, experimentation and/or discussion, with one class hour equivalent to 50 minutes.