QAA publishes Country Guide for Viet Nam

QAA has published a new Country Guide for members of its QE-TNE Scheme.

Commissioned by Universities UK and GuildHE, this Scheme explores and promotes quality enhancement activity in transnational education on a country-by-country basis.

This latest report takes a deep dive into higher education in Viet Nam - a country of more than 100 million people, making it the 14th most populous nation in the world.

Viet Nam is one of the priority countries in the UK Government’s International Education Strategy, pinned as a key growth market for UK transnational education (TNE).

It is believed that enhancements to educational opportunities will be necessary for Viet Nam to take full economic advantage of its proportionally high working age population. Last year, Viet Nam's Ministry of Education and Training included in its strategy for higher education the goal that, by 2030, for every 10,000 people in the country, there should be 260 undergraduates and 20 postgraduates, and that 35% of these students should be studying STEM subjects.

By the start of this decade, the country boasted 236 colleges and 237 universities, with 42% of high school graduates progressing into tertiary education.

Although HESA data for 2022-23 shows that Viet Nam's UK-TNE students only constituted 3.5% of Asia's total UK-TNE student population (compared, say, to China's 27.3%), it showed the highest UK-TNE growth rate of all Asian countries that year - at 42.2%. Last year, there were 56 UK providers delivering TNE in Viet Nam, in part due to its government-stated commitment to expand such provision.

Our new Country Guide looks at credit and qualifications structures, categories of higher education providers, admission processes, regulation, accreditation and quality assurance, as well as the different kinds of TNE provision in Viet Nam, student perceptions of TNE and processes for the establishment of TNE in Viet Nam.

This is the latest in QAA’s work in Viet Nam, following a capacity-building project funded by the British Council, and a Memorandum of Understanding signed between QAA and the Viet Nam Education Quality Management Agency in October 2023.

QE-TNE Scheme participants can access this Country Guide and the full suite of QE-TNE Scheme resources on our Membership Resources site. Sign up to use the site by completing our simple registration form.