Trends in Vietnamese education reform
Mar 18, 2010
In recent years, Vietnam’s GDP growth rates have been very strong compared to its South-East Asian neighbours. Its recent entry into WTO is expected to usher further changes in its economic structure, which will in turn help Vietnam become more competitive on the global market. Large multi-national corporations are driving the demand for a skilled workforce. The service sector in particular has great potential to be Vietnam’s new engine of growth, especially in the fields of information technology, tourism, harbour management, shipbuilding, finance and banking. According to ministry estimates, the country needs 10,000 to 15,000 skilled labourers trained in these fields annually. However, with the current training capacity, only 40-60% of the demand can be met. As the bulk of Vietnamese curricula do not meet the needs of the, about 60% of young labourers who graduate from training establishments need to be retrained for at least 6-12 months after being recruited.
There is an urgent need to improve higher education participation rates in Vietnam and the infrastructural capacity to support it. However, the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) has acknowledged that the current system is unable to meet this demand. This lack of qualified human resources is the single biggest factor limiting Vietnam's future development and economic growth. As a result many students are being trained abroad. The Netherlands has the possibility of attracting these students to study and train in Holland.
In Vietnam, opportunities for higher education are limited, as the system can only accommodate a fraction of those seeking admission. In 2009, Vietnam’s 376 universities had places for only 400,000 of the 1.2 million candidates who sat for university entrance exams (around 33.3 %). Enrolment is concentrated in a few academic disciplines. Although the number of university students has doubled since 1990, the number of teachers has remained virtually unchanged. The number of teachers for higher education only satisfies 60 % of the demand. Faculty qualifications are generally low and vary significantly across types of higher education institutions. Currently, only 13.86% of Vietnamese university professors hold PhDs. Furthermore, there is also the issue of quality control.
Currently there is no system in place yet to keep check on the quality of the rapidly increasingly number of educational programs and institutions being set up to accommodate the huge demand for higher education.
Vietnam’s higher education system, much like China’s, was heavily influenced by Confucianism and the Soviet model. The former emphasized rote learning, repetition and memorization over innovation and the latter stressed ideology and theory over practice. Most schools suffer from obsolete equipment, outdated curricula and retrograde teaching methods.
The education market in Vietnam provides a wide range of opportunities for foreign investment and partnerships. The Vietnamese Ministry of Education has encouraged foreign educational entities to become involved in the education and training sector, especially in the development of new disciplines, such as information technology and environmental science, and other scientific fields that are not yet widely available in Vietnam. For its part, MoET has indicated that it is keen on Dutch participation and cooperation in specific areas, and would like to see these areas or ideas incorporated in an MoU on a ministerial level. One example is the training of Vietnamese PhDs in the Netherlands using the 'Sandwich Model'. Such projects are clearly in line with the goals of the Higher Education Reform Agenda project (HERA), which aims to train 20,000 PhDs by 2020. Training Vietnamese PhDs in the Netherlands benefits not only Vietnamese candidates, but also Dutch HEIs, which often lack highly talented candidates from western countries.
The Ministry of Education may find it problematic should they implement their program to train 20,000 Phds in Vietnam focusing on PhDs only as there exists a lack of Masters in the country. There is a huge demand for overseas collaboration and opportunities exist for The Netherlands to benefit from this. Through better promotion and collaboration with Nuffic NESO the Dutch institutes could achieve a greater market share.
In addition, a number of education and training consultancy opportunities have been made available by Official Development Assistance (ODA) financed projects, which include the World Bank and Asian Development Bank projects to upgrade training, curriculum development, and equipment for Vietnam’s upper and post secondary education systems.
Together with the MoET, the World Bank has also developed the Higher Education Development Policy Program (HEDPP) which, along with the proposed New Model University Project (NMUP), is in line with the government’s Socio-Economic Development Plan 2006-2010 (SEDP). The program has two objectives: to improve the efficiency, quality and responsiveness of higher education and research on the one hand; and to increase the quantitative capacity of the higher education sector on the other. Ultimately, the HEDPP aims to build a higher education system that is multi-tiered, and includes higher education institutes operating under different ownership models (public, private and mixed). According to its ‘master plan’, the program also seeks to provide clear orientation and a robust framework for:
- the development of research in “research universities” and the integration of research institutes into these universities, with a view to improve the quality of teaching and research, and
- the development of a private higher education sub-sector that includes national and international providers.
Currently, the Vietnamese government has agreed in principle to the construction of four international standard universities with US$400 million loans from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. The plan is to develop these four universities using the model of high-end multi-sectoral universities, so that they may be ranked among the 200 best universities worldwide by 2020. The New Model University Project aims to provide the Vietnamese government the opportunity to develop and test new approaches in the management of the higher education sector, particularly in the areas of governance, financing and quality assurance. The program will be implemented over a span of five years starting October 2010 to October 2015. Outside knowledge is requested to develop and train people for this project.
The four universities will be modeled after existing modern universities in the world and meet international standards ranging from curricular, teaching methods, assessment methods and training management. The four universities are:
- the Vietnam-Germany University with Germany as a strategic partner, which is operational in Ho Chi Minh City
- the Hanoi University of Science and Technology, whose strategic partner will be France
- the Danang International University in partnership with Japan
- and a university in the Can Tho province in partnership with the United States
Currently, the MoET and Japan have not yet officially signed any agreements. The institutions listed above will be Vietnam’s first research-oriented universities. The universities will still operate under specific statutes approved by the prime minister, but have much more autonomy than existing universities. They will also be the first public universities to hire foreign administrators, in the initial stages, 50-80% of the lecturers would be professors from the foreign institutional partners. The training of Vietnamese lecturers by both sides will allow the proportion of foreign lecturers to fall to 30% by the tenth year of operation.
Apart from ODA funded initiatives, the MoET and higher education institutes in Vietnam have also introduced capacity building scholarship programmes or Master’s and PhD candidates to receive training abroad These programmes include the 322 project, the East Central Vietnam programme and the Mekong 1000 programme. The goal is to improve skills of teaching staff in the country. These are often partially funded scholarships whereby international partners are expected to provide the remaining funding for students. Upon graduation, the scholars are expected to return to their institute to teach. Germany has signed MoUs with the MoET’s VIED project and is providing Vietnam with complete funding for 60 PhD students to be trained in Germany. France has offered to provide complete tuition fee waivers.
It is obvious that Vietnam is investing heavily in their education system. Presently its educational infrastructure is not sufficient to accommodate its ambitious goals, and it is looking for foreign partners to develop new university systems and train students. There are multiple opportunities for The Netherlands to be a part of these projects browse this website or contact Nuffic Neso directly to consider our recommendations.
For the complete report please contact mstokhof@nesovietnam.org