VietNamNet Bridge – Out of 440 universities and colleges in the country, 56 are for the performing arts and of these only 20 cover all aspects of the entertainment arts.
The Ho Chi Minh City Conservative of Music has six master’s in vocal music.
Seven of the 20 are of university level with three years of learning and 13 provide two years of learning. Because there are few schools to train people working in the arts field there is now a serious shortage in the performing arts sector.
Some schools cannot fill the set quota as very few students apply to these schools. Applicants in such schools must have aptitude for art and inborn talent.
Moreover, students who can achieve the qualifying score to graduate are in single figures. For instance, in academic year 2011-2013, only 55 applicants registered at the Conservatory of Music in Ho Chi Minh City while the school had a quota for 150. Furthermore, only 30 students were able to pass the graduation exam.
At the Vietnam Dance College, which has a quota of 30 students, just 12 enrolled while only seven graduated.
The newly established Culture and Arts College in the northern mountainous province of Yen Bai has had no graduates so far. Its counterpart in Nha Trang, a coastal city and capital of Khanh Hoa Province, has only 33 graduates. With such few graduates each year, demand for the performing arts in the country can surely not be met.
More worrisome, training level of people working in the arts field is not the same and very few achieve a Bachelor’s degree, while a Master’s in the field is rare. Even the Vietnam National Academy of Music, the biggest training facility in the country, has only one Ph.D and nine Master’s of Vocal Music. Meanwhile, the Conservative of Music in HCMC has six Master’s and the college in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue has no Master’s.
The Ministry has asked the Vietnam National Academy of Music and the Conservatory of Music in HCMC to help train and produce more Master’s degree holder in the Thua Thien-Hue College, as a short-term strategy. But for a long-term strategy, the Ministry plans to allocate an amount for improving facilities and training there.
Source: SGGP