The Vietnamese government will invest in several higher education facilities amongst 23 nationwide which were selected to develop into key universities, making them become excellent universities.

Prime MInister Nguyen Xuan Phuc works with managers of the National University of Vietnam in Hanoi.

Not only educationists but also all people in the country desire that Vietnamese universities to be ranked one of top famous ones in the world.

In 2001, the policy to set up key higher education facilities mentioned in the 7th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam was institutionalized in the Prime Minister’s decision.

The Ministry of Education and Training officially announced 14 schools to be chosen as key universities and  9 more schools were included in the list of key schools. All subjects taught in the schools are important for socio-economic growth and national security including pedagogy, medicine, economy, agriculture-forestry, military techniques and aviation.

Last year, for the very first time, the Vietnam National University in Hanoi and the Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City were named in the QS University Rankings: Asia 2016 – a dedicated ranking of the 350 top universities in Asia. 

In addition to key universities, Vietnam’s leaders have dreamed that one of Vietnamese universities will be ranked in the 200 prestigious universities in the world. To turn the dream into reality, leaders must cooperate with differentpartners to build up good universities with sponsorship bodies including the Vietnamese government, partner governments and sponsors. 

The Vietnamese government also set up a steering board for best universities. The first school of this kind , Viet-Duc, was established in 2008 with the cooperation between Vietnam, German and the World Bank. Viet-Phap school was built in 2009 on the work of the Vietnamese government, French government and the Asian Development Bank. 

In 2014, Viet-Nhat school was built with the governing body from the National University of Vietnam in Hanoi. The Japanese government pledged to help Vietnam develop the school into a leading one in the country and in Asia.

In the end of 2015, the government ordered the education sector to focus investment in the National University in Hanoi and in Ho Chi Minh City to turn them into leading schools in the country and gradually become one of prestigious ones in Asia and the world. Besides, the education sector must develop Viet-Duc school, the University of Science and Technology of Hanoi and Viet-Nhat school into international level institutions.

Though the desire to have an international level school in Vietnam is a long journey, the government still cherish it because the country needs high quality human resources for the nation’s growth.

Accordingly, on the first days  of taking the office, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc paid special attention to the education sector by working with managers of the National University of Vietnam in Hanoi and in Ho Chi Minh City, and the  National Economic University in Hanoi to speed up “Vietnam’s dream of leading school”.

One of measures of a school’s success is how many start-up students and how many students are successful not how many graduates are employed. Good schools are places which nurture and cultivate start-up students who will pioneer in building up the nation. For instance, Tokyo university in Japan has 240 start-up companies of which 16 were listed in stock exchanges.

To turn Vietnamese dream of international schools into reality, major universities must study the steps of its counterparts in Asian and in the world from which they have breakthroughs and improve teaching and learning quality for better Vietnam’s future.

SGGP