The Higher Engineering Education Alliance Program (HEEAP) will be expanded in five more years with an additional investment of some US$40 million to accelerate progress in modernizing engineering education in Vietnam.

The information was released at a ceremony to announce HEEAP expansion in Hanoi on Monday.

Signatories to the agreement included the Ministry of Education and Training, the General Department of Vocational Training under the Ministry of Labor, the United States Agency for International Development, Intel Corp., and Arizona State University (ASU). These organizations will partner with government agencies, universities and colleges in Vietnam to intensify efforts to modernize higher engineering education in the country through HEEAP.

HEEAP, established in 2010 with funding support from USAID and Intel, is administered by ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. To date the program has trained at ASU more than 100 faculty members from Vietnam’s universities and colleges in advanced methods for teaching engineering.

Vietnam’s education ministry said at the signing it is “pleased with the outcomes of the HEEAP project so far. HEEAP has been a strong partner to support reform of the curriculum, and rapidly upgrade the training quality of several engineering departments in our top technical universities,” said deputy minister Bui Van Ga.

“This is the reason why we decided to support HEEAP expansion with our financial commitment,” Ga said in a statement.

HEEAP expansion consists of six components including leadership development; faculty development; curriculum, lab and infrastructure; distance education; diversity and instructional expert development; and English.

The estimated value of the expansion from 2013 to 2017 will be up to US$40 million, which was committed by the afore-mentioned organizations and industry partners. The commitment from Intel alone is US$7 million.

One component of the HEEAP expansion will establish a distance-learning network that will enable students across the country to take online courses. There will be upgrades of data systems used by the engineering education programs in Vietnam’s colleges and universities.

The new investment will enable the program to provide training to an estimated 1,000 faculty members, and bring engineering programs into compliance with requirements set by leading higher education accrediting organizations.

Since the start of the program, other industry partners like Siemens, Honeywell, Danaher and Cadence have joined the program. These companies have provided equipment, simulation and software tools and training of faculty. During the expansion of HEEAP, the alliance expects to add at least 12 new industry partners within the next five years.

HEEAP aims to accelerate economic development by providing a more highly trained workforce in Vietnam to meet the growing needs of global high-tech industries. Ultimately, HEEAP will strengthen education and research collaboration, as well as business ties, between Vietnam and the United States.

Source: SGT