The Vietnamese Ministry of Education signed a joint statement with British Council in Vietnam and UK Higher Education International Unit last week, pledging to explore ways to increase the number of students and staff travelling from Vietnam to the UK.
The statement, which was signed at the Vietnam-UK Education Cooperation Forum in London, focuses on four areas of cooperation: policy dialogue, education development, academic and student exchange and qualification recognition and reference.
“The radical and comprehensive renewal of education and training is currently our key mission for international integration”
Speaking at the forum, Deputy Prime Minister of Vietnam Vu Van Ninh said that training is considered “one of the strategic breakthroughs for sustainable development of the country” by Vietnam’s government.
“The radical and comprehensive renewal of education and training is currently our key mission for international integration,” he said.
The forum was held during Vietnam Discovery Week in the UK to mark the fifth anniversary of the Vietnam-UK Strategic Partnership and the 70th anniversary of modern Vietnam.
Around 50 Vietnamese universities and 80 representatives from universities in the UK attended the event, to discuss how to increase bilateral collaboration across the education sectors.
Scholarships were identified as an effective means of increasing student mobility, including existing government scholarships such as Project 911, which funds PhD courses abroad for Vietnamese students.
Collaborative programmes between UK and Vietnamese institutions also have the potential to increase student movement, and three case studies presented at the forum focused on best practice in building partnerships in vocational education, student exchange and postgraduate education.
Forum participants also discussed how to promote stronger and more sustainable research collaboration between Vietnam and the UK.
“We hope this will lay a firm foundation for further collaborations at institutional and governmental level between Vietnam and the UK,” commented Cherry Gough, director of British Council Vietnam.
“We believe that this forum will make a valuable contribution to our shared vision of more and deeper Vietnam-UK education partnerships, contributing to Vietnam’s development as a leading economy of the future, and building on the fact that UK is already among the three most preferred English-speaking destinations for study abroad for Vietnamese students,” Gough added.
Around 3,100 new student visas are granted for Vietnamese students to study in the UK each year, and at the end of 2014 there were 4,380 Vietnamese students enrolled at UK higher education institutions.
UK institutions also run more than 50 programmes in Vietnam with local partners, attracting nearly 7,000 students, making it the third ranked TNE provider in the country.
