More than 25,000 Vietnamese high school students have been taught Japanese language at their schools under a decade-long project which started in 2003.

The project has come to 19 junior high schools and 12 senior high schools in Hanoi, Hue, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Dinh, Deputy Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Vinh Hien said at an October 8 seminar to review the implementation of the project in the capital city.

After ten years, Japanese has become one of the five official foreign languages included in the schools’ curricula and favoured by Vietnamese students, the official said.

The Japanese side has dispatched its experts and teachers to Vietnam to help the country compile teaching programmes and textbooks while assisting their Vietnamese colleagues in professional skills.
Vietnamese teachers and managers have also been sent to Japan to explore the country’s culture, land and people.

As of 2013, the project will form part of the country’s foreign language teaching and learning programme in the 2008-2020 period.-VNA