Educators and experts have called for reforms in the administration of local universities as a necessary step to improve the quality of education for the 2009-10 academic year.

They made the point at the opening on March 5 of a two-day workshop sponsored by the US-funded Fulbright Programme at Hong Duc University in the central province of Thanh Hoa.

The workshop compared educational management in Vietnam with that of other countries and discussed models and management mechanisms at universities governed at the provincial and municipal levels with a focus on how to revamp administrative procedures.

Vietnam now boasts 18 local universities, which have been recently founded under a Government decision that allowed universities for the first time to be put under provincial or municipal administration.