Construction management — Project Management and Development Board 1
Deputy head of construction management from 2013. Tracking quantities and costs during construction, where variations appear before they ever reach the paperwork.
TEACHING STAFF
MSc. Nguyen Huu Thu
A Major in professional military service. Heads both the Cost Estimating and the Tendering departments at the Institute, leading the courses on quantity take-off, cost estimating, and construction payment and settlement.
2010construction economics degree
2014head of settlement dept. from
2015heads cost estimating here from
02departments he heads
ROLE AT THE INSTITUTE
Teaching estimating from the settlement side
Most estimating teachers come from the side that prepares the documents. He came up through settlement, where every figure is checked one last time before money changes hands.
- Heads the Cost Estimating department at the Institute since 2015, responsible for the content and teaching quality across the cost subjects.
- Heads the Tendering department. Tendering is bound tightly to estimating and settlement: the package price comes from the approved estimate, while the contract terms in the tender documents decide how payment and settlement will work later. The two subjects are taught as one continuum.
- Leads the Construction Cost Estimating, Payment and Settlement and Quantity Surveyor courses.
- Puts the legal framework in order for students. Cost rules are scattered across decrees, circulars and annexes, and they replace one another constantly. Each course opens by rearranging that body of regulation to follow the actual sequence of work.
- Keeps the course material current with the documents in force from 1 July 2026: Decree 206/2026 on cost management, Circular 36/2026 on cost determination methods, Circular 37/2026, and the new norm set under Circular 38/2026.
CAREER
Three stages, moving back up the money trail
From construction management on site, to settlement, then to teaching. Each stage reads the same cost file from a different angle.
Payment and settlement — Southern Technical Board
Head of the settlement department from 2014. Finalising contract values, checking quantity records against as-built drawings, handling variations and price adjustment.
Teaching — Institute of Information Technology in Civil Engineering
Head of the Cost Estimating department since 2015. Turning the things that actually get files rejected at verification into marked classroom exercises.
WHAT HE TEACHES
The parts he goes deepest on
- Quantity take-off — measurement rules, deductions at intersections, and writing the calculation so every figure traces back to the drawing.
- Finding and applying norm codes — where one item on a drawing may match several codes depending on interpretation, and what to do when no code exists.
- The build-up of construction cost — direct costs, indirect costs, pre-tax profit, value added tax, and site accommodation costs.
- Contract price adjustment — the right index period, the right formula, and the right portion of the contract.
- Payment and settlement records — the file for each instalment, the contract settlement, and the errors that get files sent back.
TOOLS
Software he works in
- G8 — the estimating package used in most classroom exercises.
- Delta and Acitt — two other common Vietnamese estimating packages, taught so that switching tools does not mean starting over.
- AutoCAD — reading drawings and measuring directly on them during take-off.
- Excel — quantity sheets, reconciliation tables and instalment payment trackers.
EDUCATION
Education and expertise
A construction economics background, followed by a master’s in construction management.
- Construction economics degree — Hanoi University of Civil Engineering, 2005–2010
- Master of Construction Management — Thuyloi University, 2017–2018
- Construction cost management — from construction management and settlement practice
- Quantity take-off and cost estimating — the subjects he has headed here since 2015
- Contract settlement — from his years as head of a settlement department
Learn estimating from someone who used to sit on the settlement side
Knowing where a file gets scrutinised changes how you build one.