1.          Overview of Quy Nhon University

1.1.     Establishment Process

Two years after Independence Day, the Minister of Education (the Ministry of Education and Training - MOET now) issued Decision No. 1842/QD on December 21, 1977, creating the Quy Nhon Pedagogical University Campus. On July 13, 1981, the Council of Ministers (known as the Government now) approved Decision No.02/HDBT to establish Quy Nhon Pedagogical University with the mandate to train and nurture teachers for high schools for the South-Central Coast and Highlands.

In Decision No. 221/2003/ QD-TTg, the Prime Minister authorized to change of Quy Nhon Pedagogical University’s name to Quy Nhon University (QNU) on October 30, 2003. As a consequence, QNU has developed into a multidisciplinary training institution that has significantly aided in the socioeconomic development of the provinces of the South-Central Coast and the Central Highlands in particular, and Vietnam in general, thus serving the goals of constructing socialism and defending the fatherland.

1.2.    Mission, vision and core values of the University

The mission, vision, and core values of Quy Nhon University are clearly and precisely defined; appropriated to the functions, tasks, resources, and development orientation of the University; associated with the socio-economic development strategy of the region and the whole country.

Mission: QNU is a multi-disciplinary higher education institution with the mission of training and developing high-quality human resources, fostering talents, and undertaking scientific research. The university is also responsible for imparting knowledge and facilitating technology transfer to effectively serve the country's sustainable development, especially the South-Central and Central Highlands regions, contributing to society's progress.

Vision:  By 2030, Quy Nhon University will become a multi-disciplinary higher education institution with high prestige and quality standards in Southeast Asia and attain a vital position in training cooperation, research, and academic and cultural exchanges at home and abroad.

Core Value: Responsibility - Professionalism - Quality - Creativity - Humanity

Educational Philosophy: Comprehensive - Liberal - Practical

Quality Assurance Policy: Constantly improving the quality of training, scientific research, and community service; ensure that learners develop their capabilities and qualities comprehensively, can adapt to change, and meet society's demand for high-quality human resources.

1.3.     Summary of outstanding achievements of QNU in the period 2017 – 2022

Since 2017, to implement the recommendations of the external assessment team and the Education Accreditation Council, QNU has implemented a plan to enhance the quality of education after the external assessment. Thanks to that, the university can overcome shortcomings, improve education quality and maintain quality assurance conditions. From 2019 to 2022, QNU implements the Project of QNU’s Renovating the organizational structure with a vision to 2030. The project is expected to dissolve, merge and establish numerous new departments, updating and completing the strategic plan and regulations to continuously improve the effectiveness of leadership and management to meet the innovation requirements of Vietnam's higher education. Consequently, as of November 2022, the University has 724 official staff and employees, including 495 academic staff, including one professor, 31 associate professors, 192 Ph.D., 60 lecturers being researchers in Vietnam and abroad; 642 official staff, 62 permanent employees, and 21 casual employees. In addition, the proportion of full-time academic staff with professor, associate, and Ph.D. degrees accounted for 45.25%. QNU has established a solid foundation to enhance teaching quality, innovate, and elevate the quality of educational institutions and training programmes at all levels thanks to the priority of developing high-quality academic staff who received education at renowned domestic and international universities. The University is also moving toward modernization, standardization, and cross-cultural fusion.

QNU is currently training 50 bachelor's and engineering programmes, with approximately 14,000 full-time undergraduates. Additionally, QNU provides Vietnamese training at the bachelor level for hundreds of Laotian students from the provinces of Attapeu, Champasak, Salavan, and Sekon. Moreover, the training programme is periodically reviewed, updated, and developed to improve the training quality and meet the stakeholders' requirements.

The IT infrastructure has been gradually modernized to meet the needs of teaching, learning, scientific research, and problem-solving. The working rooms, lecture halls, libraries, examination centers, self-study rooms, and exercise and sports centers have been invested with modern equipment. Moreover, the surroundings and scenery of QNU are always green, clean, beautiful, and secured.

QNU asserts that everything must serve society and become an independent university. Thus, applied research, creating scientific and technological products, commercialization associated with business development, and local socio-economic development as the direction needed to be focused and developed along with fundamental research. From 2017 to 2021, the number of topics, research programmes at all levels, and projects from the University's international, national, local, and corporate funding increased sharply. Besides, four international programmes have been approved; QNU has been sponsored by the VLIR-UOS Organization (Belgium) for the 10-year IUC Programme, with a budget of up to 6 million Euros. With domestic partners, the University has obtained funding from Vingroup up to 10 billion VND.

QNU has established a quality assurance network inside, including University Quality Assurance Council and Quality Assurance Teams at departments. The University has also developed an improvement plan to enhance higher education quality under Project 69 of the Prime Minister from 2021 to 2025, which clearly shows the roadmap for implementing the quality assurance work of the University in the five years (2021-2025). From 2019 up to now, the University has had 12 university training programmes that meet educational accreditation standards according to the Ministry of Education and Training's standards; two master's programmes were externally evaluated in September 2022. At the same time, the University has finished the necessary things for the second round of self-assessment. It is expected that QNU will coordinate with the Center for Accreditation of Education Quality to organize the second assessment in December 2022. That is the result of the priority policies for the quality assurance work of the University in the period 2017 - 2022. The University had also connected and participated in the UPM (University Performance Metrics) when this system was just established. According to the assessment results of UPM, the University has been ranked as a 4-star in Southeast Asia.

In order to build values for society and improve the university's reputation, the university has conducted several social events related to its strengths. These regular activities include encouraging and boosting standards for tens of thousands of teachers at all levels, taking part in research to address the local economic issues, society, and environment, student volunteer movements, and blood donation.

With the accomplishments mentioned above, QNU has consistently earned the Excellent Labor Collective Award and Certificate of Merit from the MOET for the academic year 2017–2018. Additionally, The University received the MOET's Emulation Flag in 2019–2010.

1.4.     The university organizational structure

Currently, the University has 12 faculties, 01 university-managed department, 10 professional departments, 01 library, 01 institute, 03 financial dependent centers, 01 financially dependent institute, and 05 financial dependent centers.

1.5.     Organizational structure of the University Council

QNU University Council for the term 2020 - 2025 consists of 19 members, of which 12 are University official staff, 01 student, and 06 outside members. The Chairman of the School Council is Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quang Ngoan. The university council includes 04 boards: Training and Quality Assurance Board, Human Resources and Legal Board, Finance - Facilities Board, and Science, Technology and Cooperation Board.

2.      Introduction to Finance-Banking and Business Administration

2.1.     Formation and Development Process                

In July 1994, Quy Nhon Pedagogical University and National Economics University signed a contract for joint training in business administration. This event has laid the first "brick" for building and developing the fields of Business Administration, Accounting, Finance and Banking, and Economics. The first year of enrollment for business administration majors – September 1994 – Quy Nhon Pedagogical University recruited 65 students majoring in Tourism Business Administration. The Department of History - Politics was in charge of supervising the first course's students.

On June 7, 1996, the Rector of the University signed Decision No. 118/QD to establish the Technology - Law - Economy Committee to manage the second phase of the joint training programmes: Tourism Business Management, Commercial Business Management, Accounting (cooperated with National Economics University), Business Administration (cooperated with Hanoi University of Science and Technology), Law (cooperated with Hanoi Law University), Electronics and Electrical Engineering (cooperated Hanoi University of Science and Technology and Danang University of Technology).

The two-stage training system was abolished in 1998 to improve managerial effectiveness and emphasize long-term development. On July 14, 1998, the Rector of the University signed Decision No. 220/QD to form the Economic-Law Committee based on the General University Board and the Law-Economics sector of the Technology-Law-Economics Committee.

The Prime Minister announced Decision No. 221/2003 / QD-TTg allowed Quy Nhon Pedagogical University to change its name to Quy Nhon University on October 30, 2003. It is a critical milestone affirming that QNU's interdisciplinary training development strategies ushers in a new phase of growth for the non-pedagogical disciplines, which are economics and business administration. In the following years, the bachelor programmes of Accounting, Finance-Banking (first enrollment in the academic year 2007 - 2008), and Economics were respectively founded.

On October 14, 2009, the Rector of QNU signed Decision No. 1231/QD-ĐHQN to separate the Department of Economics and Business Administration into the Department of Economics and Accounting and the Department of Finance, Banking and Business Administration (FBA). Thus, FBA takes the annual March 27 as a traditional date.

FBA has now trained and supplied personnel resources directly to Binh Dinh province, the Central-Coast Highlands region. Additionally, the Department has educated thousands of graduates in many training specialties that have satisfied societal demands.

2.2.     Mission – Vision – Goals – Educational philosophy

Mission: training bachelor students in all aspects of competence and quality, with social responsibility in finance, banking, business management, tourism, and hotel management, logistics and supply chain management. This mission is achieved by constantly enhancing the programmes to international standards, strengthening scientific research, and improving teaching staff's quality to effectively serve the country's sustainable development, especially for the South-Central and Highlands region.

Vision: By 2030, the Department of Finance, Banking, and Business Administration will be a prestigious application-oriented training institution in finance, business management, tourism, and hotel management, logistics and supply chain management. FBA can meet the quality standards of Southeast Asia, ensuring that graduates gain employment and swiftly acclimate to the global economy.

Goal: To construct the Department to become a renowned institution in training, scientific research, and scientific consulting in Finance, Banking, and Business Administration in Binh Dinh, the South-Central and Highlands region, and the whole country. FBA builds a team of highly qualified teaching and management staff with a strong science background. Additionally, the training programmes catch up with the higher education level, approach the worldwide development trend, obtain high competitiveness, and adapt to global integration.

Specific Goals:

·     Constantly improving training quality, ensuring learners learn modern professional knowledge, be trained in skills, and cultivate professional ethics;

·   Develop the training scale appropriately, especially form and gradually increase the scale and training quality of the Master's degree; apply modern teaching tools actively in the teaching and learning process;

·   Thoroughly implement the active teaching method with the motto "Teach how to learn, promote the initiative of learners"; modernize the training programme step by step;

·    Promoting scientific research, establishing the links between scientific research with training and serving the society; increasing income from scientific, production, and service activities;

·    Strengthening international cooperation to support training activities, science, and technology transfer, and maximize benefits from international cooperation to serve society;

·     Build a sufficient quantity of academic staff and managers with ethical qualities and professional conscience, excellent professional qualifications, advanced teaching and working methods.

Educational philosophy: Learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together and contribute to society.

2.3.     Organizational structure, academic and official staff

FBA has been gradually developing and becoming a prestigious training address in Vietnam. Currently, the Department has 42 academic staff and three official staff, of which there are two associate professors, 23 doctorates, and 17 masters (including four domestic and foreign Ph.D. candidates). The Department has 03 subjects: Business and Management, Finance - Banking, Tourism and Hospitality Management.

2.4.    Size and academic programmes

At the bachelor level, FBA offers the following five majors: Finance-Banking, Business Administration, Tourism Management, Hotel Management, Logistics and Supply Chain Management. There is one master’s programme available for those who want further education is Master of Business Administration. The Department has approximately 3,383 full-time students. The vast majority of graduates are able to satisfactorily fulfill the job and society's requirements. Many former students and graduates achieve success as prominent managers, scientists, and entrepreneurs.

Regarding the training outcomes, FBA has trained more than 2,700 bachelors in Finance and Banking, 3,200 bachelors in Business Administration, 140 bachelors in Hospitality Management, and more than 50 bachelors in Tourism Management.

2.5.     Scientific research and international cooperation

Regarding scientific research, only in the last four years, FBA's academic staff have participated in 08 ministerial-level projects, 08 provincial-level projects, and 35 university-level projects. Additionally, they have published 37 articles in international journals, more than 50 articles in Proceedings of international conferences, and more than 150 in scientific journals and domestic conferences. Besides, they participated in writing 20 university textbooks.

The student research movement has expanded tremendously. FBA's students gained top honors at the annual award presented by the Ministry of Education and Training thanks to enthusiastic instruction from highly qualified academic staff. With international cooperation, FBA is extending its affiliation with Prince of Songkla University, Thailand, for bachelor training and scientific research.

With those outstanding contributions, many of FBA's academic staff were honored to receive the Certificate of Merit from the Minister of Education and Training and the Chairman of Binh Dinh Provincial People's Committee.

In the coming years, FBA will continue to cultivate the academic staff and enhance the quality of teaching and scientific research. The lecturers continue to build and update training curricula at all educational levels in line with development trends and meet society's needs, further promoting scientific research, especially topics towards life application and technology transfer.

2.6.    Introduction to the Bachelor of Business Administration Programme

The bachelor of business administration programme aims to train employees with good political and ethical qualities and a high sense of social responsibility. Graduates holding a Bachelor of Business Administration can master the basic knowledge of social, natural, political, legal, economic, and management sciences. They have comprehensive knowledge and in-depth, modern business administration skills; they can work independently, think creatively, and adapt to the change in the global business environment. The bachelor's degree programme in Business Administration with a university degree has a total volume of knowledge of 135 credits (not including the conditional subjects of General Education, Defense, and Security), and the training period is four years. The programme is designed with three narrow majors: Business Administration, Marketing Management, and International Trade.

A Bachelor in Business Administration can:

·Working for firms, corporations, joint ventures, non-profit organizations, social groups, and NGOs. He (She) might start their own business, conduct scientific research, and teach at universities and colleges.

·Being in human resource management, financial management, production management, marketing management, supply chain management, strategic management, import, and export.

·Functioning such as specialists in the sales, planning, marketing, administrative, and human resources departments, a specialist in strategy development and market development, and seeking partners at companies that provide a service, companies that manufacture import-export products, or multinational corporations.

·Be promoted to executive positions such as CEO or CFO, and start and lead their businesses.

·Start running a shop, become an agent, or represent a company as a distributor of products in for local or foreign market.

·Attending short-term courses to develop and upgrade expertise in international business and economics.

·Taking courses for a second bachelor's degree, preferably in a related field.

·Enroll in a master's or doctorate programme in business administration or an economics-related discipline at a university in the Vietnam or abroad.