At the signing ceremony (Photo: US Embassy in Hanoi) MOET Minister Nguyen Kim Son and USAID/Vietnam Mission Director Aler Grubbssigned the MOU on September 9 at a ceremony hosted by the MOET.
The MOU builds upon USAID’s decade-long cooperation with Vietnam on highereducation partnership programs. The MOU expands USAID’s support to MOET toadvance Vietnam’s higher education to be even more innovative and competitive.
“We applaud the Government of Vietnam on its reforms to build aglobally-competitive higher education system,” said Mission Director Grubbsduring remarks delivered at the ceremony. “This first-ever MOU between USAIDand the Ministry of Education and Training marks our ongoing commitment tocollaborate on a wide range of higher education partnership programmes thatwill directly support MOET’s ambitious higher education reform goals.”
Education Minister Son thanked the US Government for its support for Vietnam,especially its in-depth cooperation with Vietnam in terms of education-trainingand scientific research.
Sharing that Vietnamese higher education was standing in front of a ‘majorrevolution,’ Son said that in this process, internal efforts were playing a keyrole, but outside support would also be important, and asked for continuedassistance from the US Government and education institutions.
Vietnam’s 2018 Revised Law on Higher Education is prompting significant changesto move the country toward a more open higher education system.
The law sets out details for public universities to have new authorities aroundcurriculum, recruitment, enrolments, and resource mobilisation and management.
USAID said it supported Vietnam’s efforts to modernise its higher educationsystem.
In partnership with US higher education institutions and the private sector,USAID was helping Vietnamese universities to improve academic quality andenhance institutional governance to serve as modern models of higher educationand drive Vietnam’s socio-economic development. Many of these programs hadconnected Vietnamese universities with leading US higher education institutionsand private sector companies to develop innovations in teaching and learning,accreditation, curriculum reform, research, and university and industrylinkages.
With the signing of the MOU, USAID would support MOET with a new project thatwould provide direct technical assistance to review and improve highereducation policies.
Improving policies would advance university autonomy, quality assurance,digital transformation and innovations in key sectors that are critical to Vietnam’scontinued economic growth and development./.
VNA
