Dr Ho Thanh Phong, Rector of the Hong Bang International University, said internationalizing Vietnam’s tertiary education aims to produce graduates who can become global citizens, i.e those who can work both in Vietnam and in foreign countries for multinational groups.

He said once companies carry out production and business activities in many different countries, the labor mobility is irresistible.

In such conditions, if Vietnam can integrate well into the world and provide high training quality, Vietnam’s universities will be the destinations for international students and can attract foreign lecturers.

Yet, to reach that end, it is necessary to reorganize the training. The issues that need reconsideration include the quality of lecturing staff, facilities and training curricula.

Using English as the lecturing language at universities is one of the major issues of education internationalization.

In fact, schools have been aware of the necessity of using English and some of them have begun applying this. However, teaching programs using English still cannot be applied on a large scale.

Hong Bang plans to use English for seven training programs, commencing from 2019, namely law, business administration, hotel management, IT, information security, odonto-stomatology, logistics and supply chain management.

The students who get a 5.5 or more score in IELTS will be able to go directly to professional study without having to undergo an extensive English training course. Those who still cannot meet the requirements will have to study English for one semester or one year.

A university lecturer in Hanoi said lectures will also be given English in some majors at his school the next year.

He said the most important thing universities have to prepare when organizing lessons in English is the teaching staff.

“It is very difficult to find lecturers who are good both at disciplinary knowledge and English,” he said.

However, the school has found a solution to the problem – choosing qualified lecturers from those who obtained doctorates and master’s degrees from overseas schools, and had good research works.

Nguyen Thien Tong, a lecturer at the HCMC University of Science & Technology, agrees that high-quality lecturing staff is the most important factor for integrating into the world.

“No need to import foreign curricula. Good teaching staff will be able to build up high-quality reasonable curricula,” he commented.

However, in order to attract high qualified lecturers, schools need to apply reasonable wage policies. At present, private schools are more attractive than state-owned ones because they offer higher pay.

High-school graduates turn away from higher education

As many as 30 per cent of high-school students have decided not to apply for colleges this year according to the Ministry of Education and Training.  

Higher education accreditation centers lack professionalism

Higher education accreditation centers lack professionalism

Kim Chi