admin Vietnam’s higher education system includes 235 universities, institutes, with nearly 73,000 lecturers and a total student population of nearly 1.8 million. On the other hand, in 2004 the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) of higher education of Vietnam surpassed the threshold of 15%, signaling a new stage in its development. Despite significant contributions to the socio-economic development of the country, Vietnam’s higher education generally faces many challenges. General assessments show that the quality of training is not high enough to meet the needs of society and enterprises in terms of the number and structure of occupations, being ranked low in international rankings, high unemployment rates among the graduates, inadequacies becoming increasingly apparent, all leading to greater social anxiety.
Accreditation was initiated in 2004, but by 2017, still, relatively few – 80 – Vietnamese universities have been accredited for the first time. Like elsewhere, in Vietnam accreditation can be conducted at both institutional and program levels. The accreditation work is assigned to five accreditation centers, of which four are located at Hanoi National University, Ho Chi Minh National University, Da Nang University and Vinh University, and the remaining center is under the Association of Universities and Colleges of Vietnam.
Vietnam’s accreditation standards are heavily based on reference to the standards set by the ASEAN University Network for Quality Assurance (AUN-QA). In order to reach the national accreditation standards, universities must ensure the quality of their development strategies, systems and performance in such areas as training, scientific research, international cooperation etc. The period of accreditation validity is five years.
In recent years, Vietnamese universities have paid special attention to international integration in the field of quality accreditation. To date, six Vietnamese universities have been accredited by the two international accreditation bodies, the Higher Council for the Evaluation of Higher Education and Research in France (Le Haut Conseil de l’Évaluation de la Recherche et de l’Enseignement Supérieur – HCERES) and the ASEAN Quality Assurance Network (AUN-QA). Recognising the importance of international ranking for Vietnamese universities, early in 2018, the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam invited 22 leading universities in the country to attend a national workshop to discuss strategies to develop higher standing of some leading Vietnamese universities in the regional and international ranking systems. Mandy Mok, CEO of QS Asia delivered a keynote speech. Many initial efforts have been made by universities and the result is quite encouraging. In the 2019 QS World University Rankings®, two Vietnamese universities, namely: Vietnam National University of Hanoi (VNU of HN) and Vietnam National University of Ho Chi Minh City (VNU of HCM) have been ranked among the top 1,000 for the first time in the 701-750 and 8011000 bands respectively.
Source: QSwownews
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