Yesterday’s post on the growing number of Vietnamese students enrolled in American universities was both promising and inspiring. This is the right direction for Vietnam as it tries to modernize its economy and infrastructure. The burning question here is whether these figures correlate with the student’s level of preparedness for the global market. It may be true that a relatively larger number of Vietnamese students are enrolled in American universities than some Asian countries, but does this make them strong competitors in the market. China, India, and South Korea continue to send more students to prestigious universities for technical training and probably retain more students after graduation for future contribution to their respective nations. It is clear that an education at community colleges provides insufficient training for many job sectors. That being said, what is the government’s role in education reform in order to catapult our economy into the 21st century.
OneVietnam Networks believes in partnerships – the aggregation and sharing of resources to further advance different causes. We were very excited to learn about the education reform movement currently happening in Vietnam, a movement that promotes educational partnership between Vietnam and Japan. A few weeks ago, the first conference of Vietnamese and Japanese universities took place in Hanoi, bringing together more than 300 delegates from over 100 educational institutions in the two countries.
Vietnamese Minister of Education and Training-cum-Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan stated that Vietnam is committed to developing high-quality human resources by finding ways to renovate the education sector, improve teaching, and linking training with social demand. According to a report from VietnamNet, Vietnam has demonstrated their commitment to education reform by adopting national programs to train thousands of doctoral degree holders and applying more than 1,500 electronic course books to tertiary teaching. Moreover, it has also given preferential credit to poor students and higher autonomy to universities and colleges.
By 2020, Vietnam hopes to have five of its universities ranked among the world’s top 200 universities. This is a formidable task which Vietnam hopes to receive assistance from advanced countries like Japan. Shigeharu Kato, an official from Japan, stated that his country is willing to share its experience and to work with Vietnam in tertiary education. Furthermore, It will create incentives for Vietnamese students and postgraduates to study in Japan.
The relationship with Japan has resulted in incredible progress. The Japanese government has helped Vietnam build 256 primary schools in remote areas and increase the level of training and research at more than 100 Vietnamese colleges and universities.
This is a very promising step for Vietnam. If this much progress has resulted from a partnership with Japan, what would Vietnam be like if more collaborations with other nations existed?
Let’s join together to make Vietnam a better place. Let’s collaborate and help make Vietnam a better place to Learn, Work, and Live. Let’s join OneVietnam.org
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