A linguistic analysis of social attitudes towards the quality issues of postgraduate education in Vietnam

This paper proposes the PhD project A linguistic study on social attitudes towards the quality of postgraduate education in Vietnam. The study uses Appraisal theory as the framework to analyse interviews with different stakeholders involved in the postgraduate education sector, namely bureaucrats, management, academics and students. The study aims to find out: What the stakeholders’ perceived quality issues in relation to MA and PhD education in Vietnam are Who the stakeholders’ believe to bear the responsibility for the quality issues. Taking into account the facts that the quality of postgraduate education in Vietnam is in question and the fact that the Minister of Education and Training has recently urged an increase in the number of MA and PhD holders in education sectors, this study is significant in the sense that it will provide explanations for some of the problems concerning the quality of postgraduate education in Vietnam as well as thoughts for changes to improve the present situation.