Tài liệu Scientific basis and solutions implement the autonomy and social responsibility in the financial management of colleges in the North-West

INTRODUCTION 1. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM The goal is to develop new financing mechanisms for education, to mobilize and effectively use the resources of the state and society to improve the quality and scale up education and training to meet the industrialization and modernization of the country. So the financial management innovation, diversification of resources and improvement of the efficiency of investment are indispensable action in the implementation of basic reform of the Vietnam education today. Northwest Region includes Dien Bien, Lai Chau, Son La, Hoa Binh Province with seven colleges which were decentralized autonomy including financial autonomy under Decree 43/2006/ND - CP of the government. In fact, the implementation of the autonomy of the actual cases is low; the financial resource which mobilized from the budget is too small, mainly in artifacts and labor power. The implementation of the autonomy does not associate social missions and responsibility, especially does not meet the requirements for financial management in conditions of autonomy, ensure the effect, flexibility, publicity, etc. To be able to make good financial autonomy and social responsibility to create conditions for the colleges in the Northwest to accomplish basic goals of comprehensive education reform, the making of "Scientific basis and solutions of implementing autonomy and social responsibility in financial management of colleges in the Northwest" to contribute to the economic and cultural construction and development of the provinces in the Northwest in the current period is necessary. 2. AIM OF THE STUDY Basing on the basis of theoretical and practical research, the author suggests solutions to implement the autonomy and social responsibility better in financial management of colleges in the Northwest. 3. OBJECTS AND SUBJECTS - The objects of study: The public colleges in the Northwest. - Subjects: The financial management activities under the implementation of the autonomy and social responsibility. 4. HYPOTHESIS The financial management of the colleges in the Northwest is limited. The degree of autonomy and ability of implementing the social responsibility in finance is also low and causes obstacles for the training 1 activities of school. If the proposed solution performs the autonomy and social responsibility in financial management better, the school will expand revenues, use the financial resources more effectively to meet the development in the new period. 5. MISSION OF THE STUDY - The study establishes a theoretical basis for the implementation of autonomy and social responsibility in financial management of public colleges; - It also surveys, analyzes and assesses the status of implementation of the autonomy and social responsibility in financial management of colleges in the Northwest. - The study proposes solutions to implement the autonomy and social responsibility in financial management of colleges in the Northwest; - To test the necessity and feasibility of proposed solutions; test solutions to diversify revenue sources. 6. LIMITATION OF THE STUDY - Content limitation: The dissertation only studies about establishing a scientific basis for the issue of financial autonomy and social responsibility in financial management. - Limitation of the scope of the study: Dien Bien Technical – Economic College, Son La College, Lai Chau Community College, Dien Bien College of Education. 7. METHODOLOGY AND METHODS OF STUDY 7.1. Methodology To achieve the goal of the research, the dissertation uses 4 main opinions: including systematic opinion, territorial opinion, synthetic opinion, opinion of changeable management. 7.2. Methods of study The research methods include survey, investigation, statistics, synthetic analysis, theoretical study, and testing methods. 8. EXPECTED RESULTS Result 1: The financial management in the implementation mechanism of autonomy and social responsibility in public colleges is necessary problems. Financial management in the school when implementing the autonomy needs to have four requirements: efficiency, flexibility, publicity, transparency, and fully develop from the terms of financial autonomy and social responsibility’s rights of higher education’s institutions obviously to the criteria to get the full awareness and orientation for implementing evaluation. 2 Result 2: The implementation of the financial autonomy and social responsibility of colleges in the Northwest still has certain limitations. These limitations are expressed through evaluating results. Result 3: The solutions which the study makes, is effective to enhance the financial autonomy and social responsibility of public colleges in the Northwest. 9. SIGNIFICANCES OF THE STUDY - In terms of theory: The study clearly stated the theory of the financial autonomy and social responsibility and made four requirements in the financial management. - This is the first time that the assessment of the autonomy and social responsibility in financial management of public colleges in the Northwest based on the AHP method and five criteria and targets. - The study also proposes management solutions, the effective use of financial resources in the research field. 10. DESIGN OF THE STUDY Chapter 1: Theoretical basic for implementation ò autonomy and social responsibility in financial management of the public colleges and other nations’ experiences. Chapter 2: Current situation of implementing the autonomy and social responsibility in financial management of colleges in the Northwest. Chapter 3: Solutions of implementing autonomy and social responsibility in financial management of colleges in the Northwest. 3 Chapter 1 THEORETICAL BASIS FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF AUTONOMY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT OF THE PUBLIC COLLEGES AND OTHER NATIONS’ EXPERIENCES 1.1. LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1.1. Oversea researches In the world, universities are given autonomy very early. Wilhelm Von Humboldt stated the premise principles of the freedom of teaching and learning which are the earliest. The Board of Education (Education Commission, 1964-1966) suggested that the problem of academic freedom for teachers was a necessary requirement. Salmi (2009) said that schools’ autonomy created a favorable environment management to develop the academic freedom, focus on human resource and mobilize financial resources. Thomas Estermann and Terhi Nokkala also discussed this issue. Generally, there are many researches with a lot of contents and different criteria of autonomy and social responsibility in the world such as: Germany, UK, USA, France, China, Singapore, etc. In Vietnam, in recent years, there have been many organizations and individuals who have studied the financial autonomy and social responsibility issues. Hayden and Thiep (2006, 2007) in "A 2020 Vision for Vietnam" and "Institutional Autonomy for HE in Vietnam", said Vietnam HE innovation associated with innovation of management and ensured autonomy for universities. The guidelines and policies of the Party and the State in the education reform also mentioned this content. The studies of Pham Quang Sang, Pham Phu, Ngo Doan Dai, Vu Ngoc Hai, Dang Ung Van, Le Duc Ngoc,... deeply analyzed the theoretical system and set out a number of real solutions of the autonomy . However, these researches study generally on the higher education system in the world and Vietnam, do not mention to the financial autonomy and social responsibility for public colleges in the Northwest in Viet Nam. These researches are analyzed to be the basis for the author to study, inherit the selected results for the dissertation. 1.1.2. Domestic researches In Vietnam, from 1998 to the present, the financial autonomy and social responsibility issue has been researched by many authors who focused on a number of key issues including: learning management experience from other countries in the world, the study of theoretical and practical basis of decentralized management and the financial management basing on the autonomy and social responsibility; proposing a number of solutions for each specific case. 4 1.2. COLLEGE AND THE ROLE OF FINANCIAL RESOURCES 1.2.1. The mission of colleges to the social - economic development - Training college level contributes to the development of human resources; promote the economic growth and sustainability, poverty alleviation. - Extending the adaptable flexibility meets the requirements of human resources of labor market. - Training college level contributes to the creating social justice. 1.2.2. The role of financial resources for the development of colleges Finance represents the movement of cash funds held in any subjects in the society. Finance plays an important role in higher education and college such as: maintaining the operation of the schools, dominating the scale, objectives, quality of education. 1.3. DECENTRALIZATION, AUTONOMY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT OF COLLEGES 1.3.1. Financial management in public colleges 1.3.1.1. Concept Analysis of some concepts of management, finance, financial management is by a broad sense, narrow sense and in a variety of different angles. 1.3.1.2. Contents of financial management in colleges The contents of financial management in colleges include the revenue management, expenditure management which determine the specific revenues and expenditure items. 1.3.2. Decentralisation management and financial management Decentralisation aims to give local and educational institutions more autonomy. However, decentralization in education and training depends heavily on the ability and incentive management hierarchy of authorities. Hanson (1998) suggested that the process of decentralization, including fiduciary duties, authorization and decentralization. Decentralisation of education in Vietnam is reflected in legislation such as the 2002 Budget Law, Decree 10 and Decree 43; ... The three main areas of decentralization of the education in our country are: Decentralization of activities, organizing payroll and finance. The colleges in the Northwest have very little real power when MOET still centralizes the management of the professional, training curriculum, opens training code and Provincial People's Committees closely manage personnel and finance, so though the role of fiscal decentralization is huge but the actual current process does not have a strong impact on the efficiency of financial management of the school. 1.3.3. Autonomy and financial autonomy 1.3.3.1. The concept of autonomy There are many organizations and individuals who provide a definition, the concept of financial autonomy. Overall, the authors have made the points, the concept of autonomy and financial autonomy at two angles. First, in terms of resources, the autonomy associates with the financial resources of the autonomy of the creation, distribution and use of cash resources including the state budget and state extra-budgetary resources. Second, in terms of subjects, financial autonomy of educational institutions must be linked to the subjects (legal subjects, economic subjects). 1.3.3.2. The nature of the autonomy The nature of the autonomy is the cultural decentralized management which depends on many factors such as policies, regulations and policies of the state, the dynamic, innovative personnel system, quality assurance system which should be received the concern of all stakeholders such as the State, school, business, clients, students in the process of every step of autonomy. 1.3.3.3. The content of the autonomy Autonomy - self-responsibility in the educational institutions show in all operating areas of the school including personnel autonomy, autonomy in school activities and financial autonomy. Each specific content can be analyzed in the dissertation. 1.3.3.4. The level of the autonomy The autonomy consists of 3 levels: Full, partial autonomy and selfreliance in terms of guaranteed full funding. Each form of autonomy is specified the content and implementation by the State. 1.3.3.5. The relationship between financial autonomy with other autonomous colleges, universities Administrative autonomy will not achieve if 4 contents: Organization, personnel, financial, academic do not deliver at the same time. It is also a condition for autonomy. Financial autonomy will facilitate the university initiative in the use of funds, reorganize apparatus, lay out work, improve efficiency, quality education and scientific research and gradually raise the income of officials and employees of each school. 5 6 1.3.4. The social responsibility in the financial management of colleges 1.3.4.1. The concept of the social responsibility The social responsibility is generally understood that the school is self-evaluation and monitors the implementation of the provisions of the State, is ready to explain publicity and transparency of the activities of the school and is responsible for its performance, ready to explain to the stakeholders to ensure the interests of the school itself, the State, and the school's social community. 1.3.4.2. The nature of the social responsibility Social responsibility is the ethical report of the obligation and management of the activities and results; explains the results of implementation and admits responsibility for all the unexpected results of the school for stakeholders. 1.3.4.3. The content of the social responsibility of school in financial management The social responsibility of school in financial management includes: Determining the input factors and the minimum necessary investment and the use of financial resources effectively; being responsible for the use of state budget in accordance with the regulations; having full responsibility for the suitability of the training programs; making specific regulations about people who authorize to make the decision of income or outcome finance; ready to explain decisions accompanied by evidence when anyone asks. 1.3.5. The relationship between autonomy and social responsibility in financial management of colleges Autonomy and social responsibility are always two sides of an issue. The financial autonomy is always necessary to implement social responsibility to the State, the school, learners and stakeholders. 1.4. FACTORS AFFECT TO THE AUTONOMY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF COLLEGES’ FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT 1.4.1. Guidelines and policies of the State The State makes the oriented development of higher education through construction of goals, steps and solutions, building sanctions, building systems and policies; direct implementation and monitoring. 1.4.2. Perceptions of administrators, faculty, staff autonomy and social responsibility in financial management Perceptions of administrators, teachers, school staffs about financial autonomy and social responsibility affect mainly the implementation of successful or unsuccessful this content. 1.4.3. Organizational level, the ability of school administrators in the mobilization and use of financial resources To implement the financial management of the school, it is necessary to have managers who have the practical abilities such as: Planning ability, the ability of connection and resource mobilization, the ability of financial management; and a number of skills such as: Changing management skill, negotiation skill, time management skill, risk management skill, etc. 1.4.4. Economic – social conditions of the local area where the school locates and serves The practice has proved, any objects located in areas with favorable natural conditions, the local economic and social development will be leveraged lots of benefits and contrary to the socialization of education, attract the capitals, improve the quality of teaching, etc. 1.5. BASIC REQUIREMENTS OF THE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT OF THE SCHOOL WHEN IMPLEMENTING THE AUTONOMY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 1.5.1. Assurance of the efficiency Efficiency which is an important indicator of the financial management of a school is shown by the quantitative indicators of the structure of revenues and expenditures. 1.5.2 Assurance of flexibility Flexibility in financial management follows the autonomy and social responsibility of the school is sticking with the provisions of the State to find flexibly, exploit, and diversify the income sources; flexibility in determining order of priority tasks to perform its important function. 1.5.3. Assurance of transparency Transparency is the essential requirement for the implementation of financial autonomy and social responsibility of each school. Transparency in financial management is made basing on the publicity, accurate management of entire operations including revenue-cost structure, personnel of schools and stakeholders. 1.5.4. Assurance of publicity Financial publicity in the school is notified of collection activities financial cost to the stakeholders. Forms have been publicly specified by the State. 1.6. ASSESSMENT METHOD 1.6.1. Selection of evaluation criteria The dissertation selects five evaluation criteria. The basis for selection criteria bases on Decree No. 43/2006/ND-CP dated 25/4/2006 of 7 8 the State, Circular 09/2009/TT-BGDDT May 7, 2009 of the Minister of Education and Training, etc. The dissertation uses the evaluation method AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process) by Saaty. These methods have many advantages because of its simultaneous evaluation criteria which are quantitative and qualitative. AHP evaluation method is implemented through the following sequence: - Criterion 1: Criterion of the level of participation of management staffs is in the implementation of financial autonomy. This criterion is assessed by the criteria level of access, participation, deployment and implementation of content about financial autonomy. - Criterion 2: Criterion of the level of performance on the social responsibility is in the financial sector. This criterion is assessed by measuring indicators of the level of responsibility with the person and society, is responsible for the State, higher levels and is responsible for the school. - Criterion 3: Criterion of the level of commitment to public finances is assessed by levels of income and expenditure on public finances, apparent seriousness, and readiness to explain when anyone asks. - Criterion 4: Criterion of the group structure mainly refers to whether the school can establish funds or not; how much the salary increase for staffs is. - Criterion 5: Criterion of structural revenue sources: the structural revenue shows the ability of financial autonomy of schools. The higher the diversified financial revenue is, the higher the ability of financial autonomy is. 1.6.2. Determining the weights of criteria The implementation of financial autonomy and social responsibility factors includes many factors with the different roles so that determining the weight of each criterion is needed to classify the importance of each factor in assessing the real manage financial autonomy. 1.6.3. Hierarchy of evaluation criteria Each criterion is rated by level, each level has each target. The target hierarchy is used includes four levels corresponding to it. There are advantageous levels in the upside-down as well, pretty, average and weak corresponding to the level from high to low points 4, 3, 2, 1. 1.6.4. Assessment Assessment is implemented in an individual assessment for each subject, specific criteria and the overall assessment. 1.6.5. Assessment results The overall assessment tells us the degree of autonomy and social responsibility of the schools evaluated. 1.7. EXPERIENCE OF NATIONS ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AUTONOMY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION 1.7.1. Experience of America They prioritize the investment in education, decentralize specifically in financial management, create a competitive environment and to use income resources efficiently. 1.7.2. Experience of Singapore The high autonomy expresses in a number of policies: higher wages, bonuses, allowances and flexible compensation scheme based on international research achievements; higher wages, subsidies for faculties, high-demand sectors of market; flexibility in funding research, increasing position standards, etc. 1.7.3. Experience of Japan Japan groups the universities to a number of criteria: autonomy, performance management, strengthening supervision and monitoring from outside the school system, recruitment system autonomy, the assessment of case made by the three institutions: state-university-community. 1.7.4. Experience of China Considering the state investment is mainly done to encourage diversification of education, increases autonomy and self-responsibility for the local. 1.7.5. Experience of Korea Diversification of financial resources invests in education, decentralizes high finance to local sources, and prioritizes for the main schools. CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER 1 In Chapter 1, the dissertation has an overview of many researches of many authors in the world and Vietnam on the issue of financial autonomy and social responsibility in a system which are arranged in chronological order. The dissertation selectively inherits advantages from the necessary resources. The dissertation opinion including: systematic opinion, territorial opinion, synthetic opinion, opinion of changeable management in the research process. It also determines clearly factors which affect the performance of financial autonomy and social responsibility. To implement autonomy and social responsibility in the school's financial management, the dissertation has identified a number of basic 9 10 requirements which have important implications in the proposed solutions for financial autonomy and social responsibility to be better. Basing on the research results of scientists around the world and Vietnam and combining with the expert advice and the author own experience of the management, the author has developed five necessary criteria to evaluate management activities objectively through the financial autonomy. Chapter 2 CURRENT SITUATION OF IMPLEMENTATING THE AUTONOMY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT OF COLLEGES IN THE NORTH-WEST 2.1. OVERVIEW OF NATURAL AND ECONOMIC – SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN THE NORTH-WEST 2.1.1. Natural geographical features Northwestern region, which consists of 4 provinces namely Lai Chau, Dien Bien, Hoa Binh, Son La, suffers a lot of difficulties in natural conditions such as topography, climate,... 2.1.2. Social - economic features In the Northwestern region, social - economic conditions are generally poor. The infrastructure is still at the low level. The living standards of ethnic minorities are low and there are big differences compared to the plain areas. 2.2. CURRENT STATES OF NORTH-WESTERN COLLEGES - Training scale is growing with increasingly diverse training types. - Quality of teaching and management staffs is constantly improving to meet the increasing demand by the enlarging training scale but certain limitations still remain. - The structure of the financial sources is mainly from the state budget level (above 70%), the proportion of state revenue is at a low level, mostly from different kinds of fees. 2.3. THE TRAINING SCALES AND LEVELS OF FOUR STUDIED COLLEGES 2.3.1. Dien Bien Technical – Economic College The size of the training has increased over the years in which the rate of college students has gradually raised and the proportion of vocational school students is maintained and targeted to be reduced. 11 2.3.2. The current situation at the Lai Chau Community College Currently, it is allowed to train six majors of college level at the college. In the recent years, the size of the school has been kept and expanded quickly, from 711 students (in 2008) to 2,147 students (in 2011). 2.3.3. Son La College The number of enrollments continues increasing over the years. The training scale is constantly expanding both in industry and the number of students. The training quality is increasingly enhanced. 2.3.4. Dien Bien College of Education The number of enrollments continues increasing over the years, in which the training scale at college levels accounts for a major proportion of the training size. 2.4. ASSESSMENT OF FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT IN NORTHWESTERN COLLEGES BASED ON CERTAIN CRITERIA 2.4.1. Assessing the level of participation of officials and employees in the implementation of financial autonomy 2.4.1.1. Identifying of the criteria and the level of assessment Target participation of officials and employees in approaching the contents of financial autonomy, building internal spending regulations in 04 Northwestern colleges is evaluated through four levels: Level 1: Not allowed to participate; Level 2: Partly participate; Level 3: Mostly participate; Level 4: Completely participate. 2.4.1.2. Assessment The results showed that the levels of participation of officials and employees when performing financial autonomy are different. Dien Bien Technical – Economic College and Son La College were fair. Two others were only moderate. The thesis has analyzed concretely the reasons for these results. 2.4.2. Assessing the level of implementing social responsibilities in the financial field. 2.4.2.1. Identifying of the criteria and the level of assessment The dissertation selected the following criteria: The College ensured the training quality as committed, using investing and studentscontributing funds effectively; explaining transparently to relevant parties, ensuring the interests of students, staff, officials, teachers, former teachers. Then, the evaluation based on the 4 levels from top to bottom. 2.4.2.2. Assessment The given assessment indicated that the public Northwestern colleges performed their social responsibility in the financial field at a fair 12 level; in which, Dien Bien Technical - Economic College was at the highest rank, followed by Son La College, Dien Bien College of Education and Lai Chau Community College stood at the end of the four colleges. 2.4.3. Assessing the performance of the publicity in financial management 2.4.3.1. Identifying of the criteria and the level of assessment The Circular No. 09/2009/TT-BGDĐT dated 07/5/2009 on promulgating regulations to publicly apply to educational institutions of the national education system has specified the contents and ways that the college have to perform financial publicity;and the Decree No. 91/2008/NĐ-CP dated August 18, 2008 of the Government on publicizing audit results and that of implementing conclusions, proposals of the State Audit...; the thesis gives criteria for this criterion in four levels: Good, fair, average, weak. 2.4.3.2. Assessment The results revealed that the levels of performance of publicity in financial activities of four colleges were only moderate. These restrictions were caused by some faculty and staff awareness was not high, not interested in public finance issues, aversion to explain the request of the parties concerned. 2.4.4. Assessing based on the structure of the spending group 2.4.4.1. Identifying of the criteria and the level of assessment According to Decree No. 43/2006/NĐ-CP: the following things were chosen to serve as evaluation criteria in the content of the thesis: setting up the welfare fund, bonus, extra salary fund; salary has been reformed for officers and employees by approximately 3-month salary in a year to maintain equity; the cost for these items has been increasing in the period of 5 continuous years. 2.4.4.2. Assessment Evaluation results showed that only Son La College reached the average level, the left ones stood at weak level. Pay-rise has increased over the years, but not high; in some case, the amount was even lower than 1month pay. Funds such as welfare and bonus fund have been founded but their money was humble. 2.4.5. Assessing based on the structure and degrees of the revenue autonomy 2.4.5.1. Identifying of the criteria and the level of assessment To identify the degrees of autonomy in the revenue criterion, experts in the field of financial management supposed that off-budget 13 revenues also indicate high success in the financial autonomy of the college. In the situation of being mountainous colleges, the money in question accounting for 40% of the total revenue is very good. The weak level appears when the off-budget revenue is less than 10% of the total revenue. 2.4.5.2. Assessment The revenue autonomy of the four colleges was only averagely assessed. However, when assessing each case separately, the results are quite different. Dien Bien Technical – Economic College experienced an increase in revenue when performing financial autonomy. Nevertheless, the proportion of business revenue in the total revenue was not high, just at the fair level. Lai Chau Community College is a non-productive unit; therefore, its training activities are mainly funded by the State Budget, fundamental construction and non-productive sources. With the feature that most of their training industries are teacher training which are free to attend, but its nonproductive revenues steadily increase every year through the strengthening of joint training activities; however, the increase is not high (less than 10% of total revenue) and tends to decrease during the period 2009-2011. Rating: Weak. Son La College is one of the colleges who has well implemented and applied the financial autonomy and educational socialisation, diversified revenue sources to increase the non-productive revenues. However, annual non-productive revenues accounts for only 10 -18%, average 12.7%. Rating: Average. Dien Bien College of Education’s financial sources tend to increase over the years. However, its fund is mainly provided by the State Budget. Although non-productive revenue accounts for a small proportion of the total budget of the school; however, it has experienced a relatively large increase. Rating: Average. 2.4.6 Synthetic assessment of the degree of financial autonomy and social responsibility of the North-western Colleges 14 Table 2.39: Synthetic assessment results Target Objects Dien Bien Rate Lai Chau Criterion Technical – Son La (nwj) Community Economic College College College TC 1 0,034 0.102 0.068 0.102 TC 2 0,058 0.174 0.174 0.174 TC 3 0,159 0.318 0.318 0.318 TC 4 0,279 0,279 0,279 0.058 TC 5 0,471 1.413 0.471 0.942 Total 2.278 1.310 2.079 General Fair Average Fair assessment Dien Bien College of Education 0.068 0.174 0.318 0,279 0.942 1.781 Average 2.5. ACHIEVEMENTS AND THE LIMITATIONS OF IMPLEMENTING AUTONOMY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT OF COLLEGES IN THE NORTHWEST 2.5.1. Achievements - Source of business revenue has increased over the years. - The schools have adopted financial management under the financial transparency, through internal spending regulations. - The schools have reformed salaries, developed backup funds, welfare and bonus fund. - The propaganda and ideological education have spurred awareness of officials and employees – creating their innovative initiative to actively participate in the activities of the school... 2.5.2. Limitations and Causes The dissertation has summarized some limitations, clearly defined the criteria under which, causes of the limitations are. This is the basis to build specific solutions to overcome the current situation. CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER 2 In chapter 2, the dissertation has summarized the natural, social economic conditions of the Northwestern region. These conditions have certain effects on implementing financial autonomy and social responsibility in financial management of research objects. In order to objectively assess the degree of applying financial autonomy and social responsibility of the research objects, the dissertation has developed 5 criteria: (1) Including criterion for the degree to which officials execute autonomy; (2) Criterion for level of performance on social 15 responsibility in the financial sector; (3) Criterion for level of performance in public financial activities; (4) Criterion for the cost structure; (5) Criterion for the incomes. Some of the above criteria are clearly qualitative. To limit the qualitative assessment, the dissertation has applied many different methods such as survey methods, expert methods closely associated with the state regulations. For the quantitative criteria, the dissertation based on the regulations of the State as Decree No. 43 and etc. to continue to build indicators for each criterion. In order to examine the objects’ performance of autonomy and social responsibility in the current financial management, the dissertation has developed indicators of each criterion according to four levels of good, fair, average and poor, which is equal to the number of levels from high to low as 4, 3, 2, 1. The dissertation has also assessed individual objects according to the above criteria. The result: Dien Bien technical – Economic and Son La College have reached fair for the first criterion. Lai Chau Community College and Dien Bien College of Education averaged. Results of the second criterion showed that all four schools reached fair in the performance of social responsibility in financial management. With the 3rd criterion about execution of public financial management), all four schools were at moderate level. The dissertation has identified the causes of these facts. They are considered as the basis for the solutions to be expressed in detailed in chapter 3. In the criteria for increased wages and welfare expenditure for staffs and employees, except the Son La College, three schools remain weak level. Differentiation of evaluation results is most apparent in the results of the criteria assessment 5: Dien Bien Technical - Economics College reaches fair, Lai Chau Community College is at poor level and two other schools are average. The dissertation has analyzed the specific causes of this result in the assessment process. After conducting its own evaluation, the dissertation has evaluated the implementation of financial autonomy and social responsibility of four research objects. Accordingly, Dien Bien Technical – Economic College and Son La College have achieved fair. The two remaining Colleges were only moderate. Evaluation results have shown the gains and limitations of universities in the implementation of autonomy and social responsibility in financial management. Assessment results are the basis for determining the direction and propose solutions to overcome the above limitations, the 16 theoretical and practical basis for the Northwestern colleges to make better operational financial management in the future. Chapter 3 SOLUTIONS OF PROMOTING THE AUTONOMY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT OF COLLEGES IN THE NORTH-WEST 3.1. ORIENTATION AND DEVELOPMENT FOR COLLEGES AND PRINCIPLES OF SOLUTION SELECTION 3.1.1. Orientation of State - To eliminate the financial allocation mechanism in a "please", and to issue financial autonomy to business units. - To continue to thoroughly and fully grasp the perception "Developing education is a top national policy, investment in education and training is the investment for development". - To encourage business units to expand and diversify the professional activities in accordance with the capacity of each unit, proactively exploit revenues from services in the direction of healthy competition between the inside and outside units. - To make sure that measures are synchronized, associated with policies, and other related management mechanisms such as wage policies, administrative reforms, trainings for improvement the quality of human resources, ... 3.1.2. Orientation and development of public colleges in the Northwest - The colleges build a long-term training strategy towards standardizing the quality of training at all levels, training systems for training highly qualified personnel to serve socio-economic development of the Northwest provinces and society. - They diversify the types of training to meet learning needs of all learners. - Training has to ensure the best quality in terms of modest cost. - For financial management, the financial management goals of colleges go with the general goals of the public and improve the effectiveness of budget management in the public colleges. - The colleges strive to become the training base of class, prestige, manpower training and research quality, competitiveness in the country and the region. 17 3.1.3. Principle of solution selection 3.1.3.1. Principle of inheritance Principle of inheritance is manifested in many aspects: inheriting the material base, the financial management apparatus and experience in the financial management of the predecessors; inheriting the prestige of the university and the financial situation in the past of the unit. 3.1.3.2. Principle of Reality Any financial management decisions are implemented, first of all should be based on principles consistent with practical operating conditions outside of the school. Appraising the extent of the impact factors allows the college to quickly grasp opportunities and favorable conditions to develop, expand and improve the quality of training. 3.1.3.3. Principle of effectiveness In addition to the two principles of inheritance and reality, the selection of measures to manage the financial must be based on the principle of effectiveness. When undertaking measures of financial management, it is hard for the colleges to achieve the goals set out if they do not base on the principle of effectiveness. 3.1.3.4. Principle of ensuring aims Implementation of autonomy and accountability in financial management of colleges is not only to expand revenue and improve efficiency financing but also be more important in the exploitation and utilization of financial resources for development training and scientific research development of the school. 3.2. SOLUTIONS OF IMPLEMENTING THE AUTONOMY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC COLLEGES IN THE NORTHWEST REGION 3.2.1. Awareness innovation of the autonomy and social responsibility in financial management to the school’s operation The goal of innovation is to raise staff and officers’ awareness of content of the autonomy and social responsibility that colleges have to take. - The colleges have to become aware that the content of autonomy and social responsibility are to actively seek, use financial resources appropriately, reorganize the staff, restructure scientific activities and launch regualar reports on revenues-expenditures of schools openly, practice thrift and combat waste, raise living standards for staff and officers, and to urge raising the overall quality of the school. - The leading board makes a plan, organize trainings for staff and officers in the school. - Organizing workshops on autonomy and social responsibility. 18 3.2.2. Improving plans of revenue and using expenditure to facilitate proactive management and implementation of the development goals of the school Strengthening and improving plans of revenue to ensure that financial resources are exploited to the maximum, strict management, effective use in accordance with the regulations and policies of state regulation helps raise the quality of training. In order to implement planning successfully, management and use of the financial resources the school need to be implemented step by step as follows: planning; protecting the plan; entrusting plans; distributing plans, organizing and implementing plans and the final step is to test and evaluate. 3.2.3. Diversification of revenue sources on the basis of promoting activeness and creativities of each department, each faculty, each staff and each lecturer In order for diversification of revenue sources, it is essential to expand and diversify the types of training; promoting motivation and giving individual and collective rewards for looking for financial resources; organizing services well based on achievements of research, applying innovations from experience, transferring technologies in the school's activities; enhancing expansion of international cooperation... methods of implementation are that the leading board has to coordinate with offices, specialized science professional development training in order to make training plans for each specific stage; organizing forms of service, enlist the help of the authorities and social organizations at home and abroad ... 3.2.4. Amending, completing internal spending regulations in accordance with the reality, ensuring efficient use of expenditure and labor efficiency With the aims of centralizing management, unifying revenues, increasing revenues, ensuring spending consistently, sparingly and appropriately, simultaneously contributing to gradual improvement, raising incomes for workers, teachers, strengthening infrastructure for the school, making adjustments to improve internal spending regulations to suit the practical development of each case is necessary. To implement this solution, the thesis has defined the content and specific methods of implementation in parallel with their necessary and sufficient conditions. 3.2.5. Improving financial management capacity of school leaders, managers of offices, departments and innovating the apparatus, and improving the capacity of the financial staffs Improving capacity in financial management for the management staff is to use financial resources efficiently. Therefore, to make this solution successfully, it is necessary to focus on training staff, organizing, strengthening the management apparatus; clearly defining roles and tasks of the leaders; mounting responsibilities with the interests of each individual members, each group, setting up the school’s board, ... 3.2.6. Analyzing and assessing financial performance, adjusting problems in school management in time Financial analysis is to clarify accountability, the effectiveness of giving financial autonomy to schools, help detect errors in time and find out causes to search remedies. To achieve this goal, the Planning- Financial Department has to build financially analytical reports regularly as prescribed. Stakeholders have to be announced about revenues and expenditures openly and transparently. The inspection and evaluation of the functional units will ensure objectivity in the process of implementing the solution. 3.2.7. Applying the system of financial oversight, internal audits to ensure effectiveness and transparency Inspection and audit of financial activities are a measure to ensure that the regulations on accounting and financial discipline were strictly obeyed, statistics and documents are recorded accurately and truthfully and systematically. To implement the solution, each level must set out goals, make plans, inspect and supervise financial activities on the basis of their function and tasks. Besides, inspection and supervision have to go with analyzing and assessing in order to find out the strengths and weaknesses, obstacles and difficulties, and jobs done well in order to allocate funds more effectively and efficiently in the following years. Especially, this system has to be completed before drawing the balance-sheet of the year. 3.3. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SOLUTIONS Management solutions with the aims of increasing the autonomy and social responsibility in the financial sector have dialectical relationship with each other. To mobilize and use management of financial resources, to meet the training requirements, contribute to the stability and sustainability of the institution the 7 solutions should be conducted synchronously. 3.4. EXPERIMENTING AND TESTING SOME SOLUTIONS 3.4.1. Experiment urgency and feasibility of solutions To determine the level of need and feasibility of the seven proposed solution, the dissertation conducted an experiment. Results showed that solution 1, 2, 3 are evaluated more highly than solution 4, 5, 6, 7 which are also judged to be necessary and feasible. 3.4.2. Testing solutions to diversify sources of revenue 19 20 With the stated purposes, the author has performed empirical solution: Diversify revenue sources based on the principle of promoting the creativity of each office, each department and each faculty member at the College of Economics - Engineering Dien Bien in 2012 and continue to build plans of implementing other solutions in the following period. Test results showed a positive change in the diversification of income sources. Other objectives for the remaining criteria are better. Although the results have not shown remarkable progress because testing was conducted in the short period, but it also confirmed the feasibility of the application of measures to improve the quality of management of financial autonomy and social responsibility of public colleges of the Northwest. CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER 3 Based on the evaluation results of chapter 2, the thesis clearly identified the limitations causing a restriction. In order to provide solutions to overcome the above limitations, during the process of solution selection the thesis considered some directions including: the development of the State; development strategy of each school researched. These are important orientations, which act as a guideline for the development of orientations to improve the quality of autonomy and social responsibility of colleges in the Northwest area in terms of financial management. To ensure the feasibility of the solution, the thesis chose three principles of option including: principles of inheritance, principles of reality, principle of effectiveness and principle of ensuring aims. On the basis of state -oriented and practical context and constraints identified, the thesis proposed the seven solutions to enhance autonomy and social responsibility in the financial sector of the public colleges in the Northwest as follows: (1) Innovation of awareness of autonomy and social responsibility in financial management over the operation of the school; (2) Improving plans of revenue and using expenditure to facilitate proactive management and implementation of the development goals of the school; (3) Diversification of revenue sources on the basis of promoting activeness and creativities of each department, each faculty, each staff and each lecturer; (4) Amending, completing internal spending regulations in accordance with the reality, ensuring efficient use of expenditure and labor efficiency; (5) Improving financial management capacity of school leaders, managers of offices, departments and innovating the apparatus, improving the capacity of the financial staff; (6) Analyzing and assessing financial performance, adjusting problems in school management in time; (7) Applying the system of financial oversight, internal audits to ensure effectiveness and transparency. Each solution puts a focus on solving a major constraint and implementation of overcoming common limitations in view of the synchronous application of the different solutions. In each solution, the thesis determined the specific objectives, which content needs to applied solution to, how to implement specific steps, and also identified the necessary and sufficient conditions to ensure that the application of the solution is feasible. From a theoretical basis and practical basis , the thesis chose the solution named diversifying revenue sources to be the trial solution at Dien Bien Technical-Economic College. To achieve the test results not only for the purpose of helping the school diversify revenue sources increasingly but also for the purpose that is that the test solution can have positive influences on the other contents such as raising additional incomes for workers and employees, promoting awareness and capacity management for staff and employees .... The dissertation used the six other solutions synchronously with the main solution - diversifying revenue sources. The test results showed that there were positive changes after implementation of this solution. The results obtained after testing have not shown mutation changes, but demonstrates positive changes. This does not cause contradiction or the solution is not feasible it is just because the solution has been applied in a short time. The proposed solutions enable the colleges to create, mobilize and use financial resources efficiently. These are just basically common solutions, so each colleges should base on their own characteristics when applying. 21 22 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The dissertation explained the following issues: - Reviewing a theoretical basis for the financial autonomy and social self-responsibility of university education, including college. The thesis inherited the relevant contents selectively. Determining the financial autonomy and social responsibility is indispensable for the operation of transparency, efficiency and flexibility. - The implementation of each institution is good or not is affected by many different factors such as state regulations, locally natural, economic and social conditions... When constructing the evaluation criteria, these factors above can not be ignored to ensure more objective results when being evaluated. - The dissertation analyzed the results obtained when enjoying autonomy. It also evaluated and identified the restrictions and the causes of the existing restrictions. Subjective causes of each school are that officials and employees are not interested in financial autonomy and social responsibility. This led to the modest investment of time, effort and materials for improving financial management capability. The other objective causes are the obligation of the State regulations, poor conditions of local economies. Thus, the colleges have not attracted investments as well as resources from educational socialization,.... To ensure the successful implementation of the autonomy and social responsibility in the financial sector of colleges in the Northwest, the thesis proposed seven solutions. The assay of feasibility of the seven solutions showed that it is completely likely to apply them to overcome the limitations of financial management activities. * Recommendation For the State: First, the state should continue to reform financial mechanism, increase investment, guide promotion of autonomy, facilitate colleges to create financial resources through autonomy, and to improve the quality of trainings. Besides, policies of exemption, reduction of fees at public colleges and universities need to be detailed. Second, local and central agencies managing budgets for education and training and ministries, branches need to look into and change budget management in the traditional input method. Although this mechanism ensures the tight control of spending items, but it limits the autonomy, creativity and self-responsibility of the school. 23 Third, when enacting regulations, the Ministry of Education and Training should promulgate jointly circular with other ministries in order for services and branches in provinces, especially the Service of Finance can apply properly without causing impacts on the others. Fourth, the State should study and prepare documents specifying evaluation criteria, the level of completion and quality of business operation of the unit when being given autonomy, self-responsibility. Fifth, the state should eliminate administrative procedures that are the cumbersome and overlapping, remove obstacles of financial policies, formulate policies of encouraging the exploitation of revenues from joint venture operations, joint training to increase the financial autonomy and improving the quality of training. For the Ministry of Education and Training: It must have specific guidelines and prerequisite measures for the establishment of school councils in education institutions. For Provincial People's Committee: First, it is necessary to direct and guide dependent agencies to follow regulations of autonomy prescribed by the Government, the Ministry of Education and Training, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of the Interior. Second, it is necessary to issue basic criteria as a basis for evaluating the performance of the duties of the agencies enjoying autonomy. Third, an inspection and provision system for the implementation of the autonomy of the business units needs to be established. In order to realize that the implementation of autonomy is to create conditions for heads and officials of all units to be active in the use of payroll and funds allocated, mount the use of expenditures with high quality and effectiveness. 24