Internationalisation of Vietnamese Higher Education: Retrospect and Prospect

Abstract

Vietnam’s higher education system has been profoundly affected by international influences. These influences are readily apparent in contemporary attributes of the system, but they can also be seen in the longer history of higher learning in Vietnam, from at least the tenth century onwards. During the past century, and up until reunification in 1975, the sources of influence included France, the USSR and its satellites (in the North), and the United States (in the South). Following reunification, the USSR and its satellites continued for a period to be influential on developments in higher education. Most recently, the system is influenced by the outflow of Vietnamese students to study at foreign universities, by the growing presence of foreign universities in Vietnam and by the existence of numerous international alliances. An adverse international influence perhaps is the long-standing nature of the brain drain from Vietnam. At the same time, a large and generally very successful Vietnamese diaspora now exists in many parts of the developed world, and its influence on Vietnamese higher education is growing rapidly in the form of foreign investment in Vietnam’s higher education system.