According to surveys done by recruitment companies, many enterprises complain that Vietnamese employees lack English skills.

They recommend that higher education establishments should strive to improve their students’ English.

More and more universities in the city are offering training programmes in English to address this problem.

The International University under the Vietnam National University-HCM City has, in fact, switched completely to English, the only public general university in Vietnam to do so.

A survey by the university on enterprises’ satisfaction with its students last year showed a level of 94 per cent.

The HCM City University of Technology offered its programme in English in 2006. The number has since increased to more than 30.

According to the university, the programmes aim to improve the competitiveness of Vietnamese engineers in the ASEAN labour market and meet the growing demands of companies.
They include computer science, computer engineering, automative engineering, and others.

Ton Duc Thang University teaches 11 majors in English.

Many private universities in the city also offer many programmes in English.

Hoa Sen University has programmes called the Hoa Sen Five Star Plus with classrooms having only 25 students and teaching in English. The programmes include the Vatel International Programme in co-operation with France’s Vatel Hotel & Tourism Business School and others in marketing, logistics and supply chain management and hospitality administration.

Hong Bang International University will launch nine more international training programmes in English in medicine, pharmacology, nursing, architecture, economic laws, finance-banking, industrial management, tourism and travel administration, and international relations in the 2020-2021 academic year, raising its total number to 16.

The programmes admit both international and Vietnamese students in order to foster a multi-cultural environment at the university, Assoc Prof Dr Ho Thanh Phong, the university’s rector, said, adding that students in these programmes could easily transfer to the university’s joint training programmes with universities in the US, New Zealand and other places.

Many city universities also offer courses in which some of the subjects are taught in English.

Duong Van Minh, a student of this course at the HCM City University of Science, told Việt Nam News: “I have been taught subjects such as analytical chemistry, nanochemistry and general chemistry in English. English textbooks for these subjects in this course are very good and easy for me to understand because they are not too academic.

“Moreover, my English reading and writing skills have improved thanks to the course”. — VNS

Sad fact: Many students have below average marks after 7 years of learning English

Vietnamese students learn English for at least seven years at school. However, many of them cannot obtain basic knowledge, which has been blamed on the teaching method.