In the evening of December 27th, 2024, HCMUE successfully organized a training seminar on “Counseling and student support skills for academic counselor”. This is part of a five-seminar training programme for the academic counseling team of HCMUE to hone their expertise and their counseling and student support skills.
The seminar was honored to welcome the presence of the Vice President, Dr. Cao Anh Tuan, who gave a directive speech for the seminar. Attending the seminar were leaders of functional units such as: The Office of Political and Student Affairs, The Office of Undergraduate Studies, The Office of Testing and Quality Assurance, The Psychology Department, and 276 lecturers assuming the role of academic counselors in the 2024-2025 academic year.
The seminar was organized under the combined online format, in which the academic counselors attended 4 seminars on the VLE online training portal from December 21st, 2024, to March 1st, 2025, and 01 synchronous sessions on Zoom Meeting. Apart from the “Counseling and student support skills for academic counselor”, the academic counselors attended four other seminars on VLE including: The role, authorities, and responsibilities of academic counselors; The procedures for implementing academic affairs for full-time students; Counseling expertise about undergraduate programs, Issues related to transferring scores, postponing exams, considering exemption from foreign languages, and computer science.
These seminar topics were designed to target the following aspects for the academic counselors, including: improving expertise, updating new contents in the rules and regulations related to students, equipping the required knowledge and skills for effective learning orientation, providing psychological support, and handling problems occurred while learning. Not only focusing on the aforementioned aspects, these seminars also helped promote one of HCMUE’s strength, which is the internal training aspects via VLE, and enhancing the use of information technology in academic counseling.
Giving a directive speech at the seminar, Dr. Cao Anh Tuan - Vice President - underscored the importance of academic counselors in providing orientation and helping students achieve their learning goals and develop holistically. He also stressed that student counselors must be understood of the rules and regulations related to student training, discipline, and support. Simultaneously, an academic counselor must be constantly aware of the most recent updates in education and psychology to effectively support students. An academic counselor must be the mediator between the University, students, and parents, thus creating a coherent and effective ecosystem. An academic counselor must inspire and motivate students.
Through the seminars, the academic counselors were given the opportunity to not only update the latest knowledge but also engage in exchanges to share their hands-on experiences in counseling and supporting students. This was deemed one of the most important stepping stones for future plans to holistically develop the capacity of academic counselors of HCMUE in the upcoming time.