The School of Business and Management (HSB) at Vietnam National University in Hanoi recently announced significant requirements for student admission.
For this year's admission, female students must be at least 1.58 metres tall and male students must be at least 1.65 metres tall. The university specifies that certain exceptions to this standard will be accepted in exceptional cases.
According to the university, short students are less successful than their taller peers. The Economic Times reported that the school justified this criterion by saying that height is crucial for leadership and self-confidence. However, it failed to provide credible evidence to support its claim.
In fact, a 2004 study by the American Psychological Association showed that people who are 6 feet (1.83 m) or taller generally earn more than those who are not. However, a direct relationship between a person's height and their success cannot be determined.
Moreover, this requirement discriminates against a large part of the Vietnamese population, where the average height of women is 1.53 meters and the average height of men is 1.65 meters.
The announcement, in an article published by the Vietnamese-language newspaper Tuoi Tre, of this new measure on height requirements for admission, has sparked a huge controversy on social media.
The university has dropped the size standard from three of its four programs, after the Ministry of Education intervened. The school will maintain the specific requirements for its management and safety program.
