A Review of the Reform Agenda for Higher Education in Vietnam

Abstract

This chapter reviews Vietnam’s progress in implementing Resolution 14/2005/NQ-CP, dated November 2, 2005, entitled ‘A Resolution on the Fundamental and Comprehensive Reform of Higher Education in Vietnam 2006–2020’. Resolution 14 proposed a wide-ranging reform agenda intended to create a higher education sector that by 2020 would be ‘advanced by international standards, highly competitive, and appropriate to the socialist-oriented market mechanism’. Significant progress is evident since 2005 in improving the sector’s quality and effectiveness, but the sector cannot yet claim to be either ‘advanced by international standards’ or ‘highly competitive’. In general, the pace of the reform process has been slow and sporadic, principally because of the sector’s need to rely upon leadership from a slow-moving State bureaucracy. There is also a need for better sector-wide coordination, for more global integration, and for public universities to be given appropriate forms of institutional autonomy.