VinUni is the new ambition of Pham Nhat Vuong

According to Chau Duong Quang, a postgraduate of the State University of New York at Albany, universities under corporations have existed for many years elsewhere.

There are two groups of private corporations that have set up their universities. The first group comprises corporations, whose education is their major or only business field. Phoenix University in the US and BPP in the UK are the best known names to Vietnamese.

As for the second group, the corporations were initially established to target non-education business fields, but later jumped into the field. Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in Mexico, managed by the owner of a brewery company, and POSTECH in South Korea, belonging to POSCO Group, are two of them.

Vingroup, established as a real estate developer, recently poured money into many non-real estate business fields, including retail and automobile industry. It has joined the second group of corporations.

It has announced the establishment of VinUni, a not-for-profit higher education system, which will begin enrolling students by 2020.

In 2005, the government of Vietnam officially recognized and legalized the private university model, which paved the way for the establishment of a series of universities funded by private corporations such as FPT, Nguyen Hoang, Tan Tao and Thanh Thanh Cong.

However, the statement that VinUni is a not-for-profit university has caught the special attention from the public.

“The operations and activities of VinUni will still be carried out in accordance with normal practice,” said Le Mai Lan, deputy chair of Vingroup.

“The biggest difference of VinUni is that 100 percent of the profits will be used for re-investment to upgrade the system, i.e. develop human resources, upgrade facilities, grant scholarships, sponsor scientific research and strengthen international cooperation,” Lan explained.

VinSchool, the general education system of Vingroup, only brings one percent of Vingroup’s total revenue & profit in 2017. Rong Viet Securities considered VinSchool as an ‘add-on service’ to the residents at Vingroup-developed quarters. 

Analysts noted a series of university M&A deals recently. Individual and institutional investors, instead of opening new schools, tend to take over existing schools to restructure them. 

Nguyen Hoang Group, for example, has taken over Hong Bang University and Ba Ria – Vung Tau University, while Thanh Thanh Cong Group has purchased Yersin Da Lat Univeristy and Hoan Cau Group bought Quang Trung. 

Ha Hoa Tien University has been transferred to the Ministry of Public Security and the Economics & Finance University to HUTECH.

RELATED NEWS

We need high quality tertiary education

Education Ministry consults stakeholders on higher education strategy

Mai Chi