Background information about the faculty

- Name of the Faculty:

+ In Vietnamese: Khoa Lịch sử

+ In English: Faculty of History

- Governing agency: University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City

- Address: Room A.215, No. 10-12 Dinh Tien Hoang, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1, City. Ho Chi Minh.

- Contact information:

+ Phone: 08.38293828 (extension-133)

+ Fax: 08.38221903

+ E-mail: lichsu@hcmussh.edu.vn

- Year of establishment: Pursuant to the Establishment Decision No. 869/TC-HC, dated January 10, 1979.

- Starting time of Cohort 1: 1975

The FH is the faculty with the longest history of establishment and development at the USSH. Since its establishment the FH has always focused on building and innovating under the orientations, goals and missions of the USSH as well as VNUHCM.

After April 30, 1975, the disciplines in South Vietnam entered a period of construction and development under the new education system. The College of Letters, part of University of Saigon, including the Department of History & Geography, also made a comprehensive transformation in terms of programmes, training modes and organizational structures.

On April 30, 1977, the University of Ho Chi Minh City was established on the merger the College of Letters and the College of Sciences. According to the Establishment Decision, the University of Ho Chi Minh City had 5 Departments of Social Sciences (Literature, History, Geography, English and French Literature) and 5 Departments of Natural Sciences (Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Geology). April 30, 1977 became the establishment date of all the departments and offices of the University of Ho Chi Minh City, including the History Department (later named the Faculty of History).

In the years 1975-1995, together with other offices, divisions and faculties in the University of Ho Chi Minh City, the FH built and developed a staff contingent to meet the University’s training requirements; the FH’s organizational apparatus was quite complete from departments, documentaries, offices, academic affairs, and student affairs to political organizations and unions.

In 1996, following the world’s advanced university model, the system of National Universities was born in Vietnam. VNU-Hanoi and VNUHCM have become centres of high-quality institutions in the North and the South, where their members are prestigious public universities in training and research. In such a context, based on separating from the University of Ho Chi Minh City, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) decided to establish the University of Social Sciences and Humanities directly under VNUHCM in March 1996.

In its new position as a member of the USSH, VNUHCM, the FH has made changes in personnel organization. Then the FH has become one of the primary sources of senior officials for the University leadership.

In the 1999-2000 academic year, the University decided to establish two Departments under the University: Department of Anthropology and Department of International Relations, separated from the Department of Ethnology and the Department of World History. In July 2013, the University decided to separate the Department of Archives and Office Administration from the FH to establish a new Department directly under the University. Thus, the FH not only expended its specialization but also played a fundamental role in building new disciplines so that independent and qualified faculties under the University (Faculty of International Relations, Faculty of Anthropology, Faculty of Archives & Office Administration) came into exist.

Currently, the FH continues to be one of the most important faculties, contributing to the prestige of the USSH as well as VNUHCM in the field of training human resources of social sciences and humanities in the southern provinces and cities. It has provided the society and the country with a big human resource of high qualifications at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Every year, about 200 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students are granted BA, MA and PhD degrees.

Providing undergraduate and graduate programmes, the FH annually recruits more than 150 full-time students (based on the quotas allocated by the USSH and VNUHCM). On average, in an academic year, it is in charge of training about 500 undergraduates and more than 100 graduate and doctoral students (as a result, it is considered as one of the faculties with a large number of students at three levels).

Undergraduate (Bachelor of Arts)	Full-time: Vietnamese History, World History, History of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Archaeology
	Vietnamese History, World History, History of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Archaeology
Graduate	Master of Arts: Major in Vietnamese History, Major in World History, Major in History of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Major in Archaeology
	Philosophy of Arts: Vietnamese History, World History, Archaeology

The FH’s primary goal is to provide students with a professional, dynamic academic environment, stimulating their exploration and creativity. These results have been obtained thanks to a team of 31 full-time staff (as of May 2020) (including 7 Professors and Associate Professors, 12 Doctors, 10 Masters, and 2 Bachelors) who graduated from Vietnam and other countries such as the US, Russia, China, Taiwan, India, Singapore, etc. Many of them have attended training courses abroad and taught at universities in the United States and Japan. In addition, about 40 visiting lecturers from the USSH, VNUHCM and other universities throughout the country have participated in the FH’s training.

Since the first cohort, the FH has trained about 5,000 full-time bachelors, over 4,000 in-service bachelors, over 600 masters and 00 doctors. Its graduates can work in many different fields in society, such as officials in various government systems at all levels (from central to local); research officers, teachers at universities, colleges, high schools, training and research institutions; research staff in research institutes and centres; officials in publishing houses, companies, socio-political organizations, economic organizations, diplomatic agencies, enterprises and so on.

Vietnamese is the official language used in teaching all general and specialised subjects at the FH.

Source: FACULTY OF HISTORY

Reviser: PhD.Anh Thư