REFORMING HIGHER EDUCATION IN VIETNAM

HIGHER EDUCATION DYNAMICS VOLUME 29 Series Editor Peter Maassen, University of Oslo, Norway, and University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands Johan Muller, Graduate School of Humanities, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa Editorial Board Alberto Amaral, CIPES and Universidade do Porto, Portugal Akira Arimoto, Hiroshima University, Japan Nico Cloete, CHET, Pretoria, South Africa David Dill, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA Jrgen Enders, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands Patricia Gumport, Stanford University, USA Mary Henkel, Brunel University, Uxbridge, United Kingdom Glen Jones, University of Toronto, Canada

SCOPE OF THE SERIES Higher Education Dynamics is a bookseries intending to study adaptation processes and their outcomes in higher education at all relevant levels. In addition it wants to examine the way interactions between these levels affect adaptation processes.It aims at applying general social science concepts and theories as well as testing theories in the eld of higher education research. It wants to do so in a manner that is of relevance to all those professionally involved in higher education, be it as ministers, policy-makers, politicians, institutional leaders or administrators, higher education researchers, members of the academic staff of universities and colleges, or students. It will include both mature and developing systems of higher education, covering public as well as private institutions.

For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/6037

Reforming Higher Education in Vietnam

Challenges and Priorities
Edited by Grant Harman University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia Martin Hayden Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW, Australia Pham Thanh Nghi Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences, Hanoi,Vietnam

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Editors Prof. Grant Harman University of New England Ctr. Higher Education Management & Policy Armidale NSW 2351 Australia gharman@une.edu.au Pham Thanh Nghi Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences Institute of Human Studies 9 Kim Ma Street Ba Dinh District Hanoi Vietnam ptnghi@fpt.vn

Martin Hayden Southern Cross University School of Education Lismore NSW 2480 Australia mhayden@scu.edu.au

ISBN 978-90-481-3693-3 e-ISBN 978-90-481-3694-0 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3694-0 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009941697 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microlming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

Contents

1 Higher Education in Vietnam: Reform, Challenges and Priorities . Grant Harman, Martin Hayden, and Pham Thanh Nghi 2 Vietnams Higher Education System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Martin Hayden and Lam Quang Thiep 3 Higher Education in Vietnam 19861998: Education in Transition to a New Era? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Elizabeth St. George 4 The Higher Education Reform Agenda: A Vision for 2020 . . . . . Pham Thanh Nghi 5 Reforming Teaching and Learning in Vietnams Higher Education System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kay Harman and Nguyen Thi Ngoc Bich 6 The Research Role of Vietnams Universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grant Harman and Le Thi Bich Ngoc 7 ResearchIndustry Cooperation Supporting Development in Vietnam: The Challenge of Translating Policy into Practice . . . Marea Fatseas 8 Intellectual Property and Vietnams Higher Education System . . . Robert Spoo and Dao Anh Tuan 9 Reforming the Governance of Higher Education in Vietnam . . . . Dao Van Khanh and Martin Hayden 10 Processes for Strategic Planning in Vietnams Higher Education System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Larry Smith and Nguyen Quang Dong 11 Processes of Modernisation in Two Public Universities in Vietnam: University Managers Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ta Thai Anh and Richard Winter

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12 Optimising the Impact of Vietnams Higher Education Sector on Socio-Economic Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kiri Evans and Adam Rorris 13 Accreditation in Vietnams Higher Education System . . . . . . . . Don F. Westerheijden, Leon Cremonini, and Roelien van Empel 14 Internationalisation of Vietnamese Higher Education: Retrospect and Prospect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anthony R. Welch 15 Private Higher Education in Vietnam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Martin Hayden and Dao Van Khanh Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

167 183

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About the Authors

Ta Thai Anh is a PhD candidate at the School of Management, Marketing and International Business, The Australian National University. Her thesis focuses on change processes from a management/organisation standpoint in universities in Vietnam in the context of severe resource constraints. Her research interest in higher education in Vietnam grows out of her work experience at the Foreign Trade University in Hanoi, both as a project management ofcer and as a lecturer since 1999. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Bich is Chair of the Department of Teaching and Learning Methodology and Technology at the Faculty of Education, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, with responsibility for implementing teaching and learning renovation in teacher training and management. Her qualications include a Master of International Studies and a PhD in Educational Policy and Management (majoring in higher education) from the University of Oregon, Eugene, USA. Her research interests focus on excellence in teacher education and effective management in higher education. Her consultancies relate mainly to school education quality assurance and educational equity for disadvantaged students which are World BankMinistry of Education and Training (MOET) funded projects. Leon Cremonini is a research associate at the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS), University of Twente, since 2006. He studies primarily quality assurance and accreditation models in different higher education contexts. He has been working on the Vietnamese ProfQim project since 2006 in a research and consultant capacity and is involved in developing QA and accreditation systems in several other countries. Leon also studies rankings and their impact on college choice and on the performance of the higher education system. Dao Van Khanh is Deputy Head of the International Relations Department of Can Tho University and a former Personal Assistant to the Rector. He holds a BA in Teaching English as a Second Language from Can Tho University, a Diploma in Environmental Education from Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (Japan), an MBA in International Management from Leiden University (the Netherlands) and a PhD from the School of Education, RMIT University

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About the Authors

(Australia). His doctoral thesis investigates Reforming of Governance of Higher Education in Vietnam: Case Studies of Change at Three Key Universities. He has published a number of articles on university autonomy and decentralisation. His research interests focus primarily on the marketing and university governance reform in Vietnam. Nguyen Quang Dong is Associate Professor and Dean of Economics & Mathematics, and Director of the Center for Social Economic Data Processing and Forecasting at the National Economics University in Hanoi, Vietnam. He acted as an in-country consultant to the Second Higher Education Project in Vietnam in 2005, primarily assisting with issues concerning performance indicators and the analysis of performance data. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Business Policy. His research interests are in applied economics and the economics of community development in Vietnam. Roelien van Empel works as consultant and auditor at the Netherlands Quality Agency (previously in the HBO-raad). She has been a consultant and auditor since 2001. Her work at NQA includes assessment of quality of study programmes and of institutions of higher education, corporate education and secondary education. Increasingly, she is also involved in advisory project for improvement of quality control in educational institutions. Since 2005, she has been involved in the ProfQim project in Vietnam. Kiri Evans is an education economist and works with the NSW Department of Education and Training in Sydney. She has worked in Vietnam on education projects since 1993 and has been based in all three regions of Vietnam gaining an insight into regional differences and interests. She has recently worked in Vietnam as the international economist on the Vietnam Masterplan for Secondary Education in 2006. Her specic research focus is on the social impact of education investments. Marea Fatseas is Managing Director of Ideas Connect Pty Ltd and advises on research grants programmes, especially publicprivate partnerships, and on programme management and evaluation. Her association with Vietnam spans two decades and includes a posting as a senior ofcial in the Australian Embassy in Vietnam in the mid-1990s with responsibility for developing bilateral education and training cooperation. In 2005, she consulted on the ADB-funded Vocational and Technical Education Project in Vietnam. She spent several years as a senior Australian government ofcial working on research, science and innovation policies and programmes. Grant Harman is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Centre for Higher Education Management and Policy at the University of New England. His research interests are mainly in higher education policy and management, particularly from a comparative perspective. Since 2002, he has coordinated the University of New England Vietnam masters degree programme in educational management. He is Editor-in-Chief of the refereed journal, Higher

About the Authors

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Education, published by Springer in the Netherlands. He has worked as a consultant for the World Bank, UNESCO, IDP Education, SEAMEO RIHED, Australian Education International and the South African Vice-Chancellors Association. In 2005, he worked as a consultant on the Second Vietnam Higher Education Preparation Project. Kay Harman is Professor of Education and Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of New England, Australia, with responsibility for higher degree research training and management. She is a member of the Centre for Higher Education Management and Policy in the School of Business, Economics and Public Policy. Her research interests concentrate mainly on higher education and research policy, research culture, research training, academic culture and work, mergers in higher education and universityindustry links from a sociological perspective. Her consultancies have focused on: research evaluation on a World Bank higher education project in Vietnam; mergers of higher education for the South African University Vice-Chancellors Association; and restructuring and planning efforts in higher education in Thailand and Papua New Guinea. Martin Hayden is Professor and Head of the School of Education at Southern Cross University. He has published widely on higher education policy, with a focus on issues of governance and equity. In 2005, he worked as a consultant on the Second Vietnam Higher Education Preparation Project, completing reports on the legislative and regulatory framework for higher education in Vietnam. In 2007, he worked as a consultant for UNICEF, completing reports on the implementation of the Education Law in the Lao PDR. In 2008, he was awarded an Australian Government Endeavour Executive Award, which enabled him to return to Vietnam for an extended period for data collection. Pham Thanh Nghi is Associate Professor and Acting Director of the Institute of Human Studies, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences. He holds a Master of Educational Administration from the University of New England (Australia) and a PhD. from the Academy of Pedagogy, Russia. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the State University of New York at Buffalo (19992000) and a Scholar of the Japan Foundation at the University of Nagoya (20032004). He has published numerous articles on higher education management, with a focus on issues of quality assurance. Le Thi Bich Ngoc is Deputy Head of the Finance and Accounting Department and Manager of EMBA programme at the NEU Business School, National Economics University, Hanoi. She holds an MBA from Boise State University, an MA from Macquarie University and a PhD from the Asian Institute of Technology. She has taught nancial management, international nance and accounting at universities in Australia, the United States and Vietnam and has been involved in training programmes for Vietnamese and foreign companies and agencies, including Vietnam Airlines, Credit Lyonnais, Convick, Motorola and Word Vision. She has worked as a consultant for various international aid agencies including the World Bank, GTZ and UNIDO.

About the Authors

Adam Rorris is an education economist and a fellow of the Centre for Policy Development. He has worked extensively in Vietnam on education projects since 1993. He has advised governments across South East Asia on nancing policies for improving access and quality of their education systems. In 2005, he worked as a consultant economist on the Second Vietnam Higher Education Preparation Project, completing reports on the social, nancial and economic impact of potential investment in higher education. Larry Smith is Professor and Director of the Centre for Business Research and Chair of the Research and Research Training Committee in the School of Business, Economics and Public Policy at the University of New England. He is a member of the Centre for Higher Education Management and Policy, the Centre for Research in Aboriginal and Multicultural Studies, and the Academic Advisory Board of the Australian Institute of Management. His research interests are in the areas of leadership, strategic planning, research training, access to higher education and work-based learning. He has worked as a consultant for Bhutan and Saudi Arabia, as well as for the World Bank in Vietnam and Sri Lanka, and in 2007 co-authored the Australian Government Position Paper on non-formal and informal learning to the OECD. Robert Spoo is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Tulsa College of Law. He earned his J.D. from the Yale Law School and his PhD. in English from Princeton University. He has practised with law rms in New York, Oklahoma and San Francisco, primarily in the areas of copyrights and trademarks. Prior to his legal career, he taught in the English Department at the University of Tulsa and was Editor of the James Joyce Quarterly. He has published numerous books and articles on James Joyce, Ezra Pound and other modern literary gures, and currently writes on the intersection of intellectual property, literature and the copyright-related needs of scholars and universities. Elizabeth St. George is a visiting fellow with the Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University. In 2003 she completed her PhD on higher education policy in Vietnam and has published numerous articles on higher education policy and public service reform in the one-party states of Lao PDR and Vietnam. Lam Quang Thiep is formerly a Professor of Geophysics, and Comparative Higher Education and Educational Measurement, at Vietnam National University, Hanoi. He earned the degree of Candidate of Science (1968) and Doctor of Science (1982) in Geophysics from Moscow State University. He was the Director of Higher Education Department, Ministry of Education and Training, Vietnam (19881997), and Visiting Professor at New York State University at Buffalo (20012002) in the Fulbright Scholar Exchange Program. For the last decade, he has written many articles and reviews on higher education policies and on the application of educational measurement to the assessment of student achievements in Vietnam. He is currently a professor of Thang Long University and a consultant for the National Institute for Education Management, Vietnam.

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Dao Anh Tuan is an associate at Pham & Associates in Hanoi. He holds a BA in Economics, a Diploma in Economics of Development, a Diploma in Intellectual Property Law and a Masters in Development Administration. He is a Registered Copyright Attorney and a Registered Patent & Trademark Attorney. Between 1987 and 2001 he worked as an economic researcher for the Institute of World Economy and as a senior ofcer for Vietnam Airlines and UNDP Vietnam. He is a member of the Vietnamese Intellectual Property Association. Anthony Welch is Professor in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. A policy specialist, his more than 100 publications include studies of reforms and policy issues, principally within Australia and Asia. Professor Welch has consulted to international agencies, including UNDP and the Commonwealth of Learning, governments in Australia, Asia, as well as within Europe, and to US institutions. He has project experience in several parts of Asia, particularly in the area of higher education reforms. His work has been translated into eight languages, and he has been Visiting Professor in the USA, UK, Germany, France and Japan. A Fulbright New Century Scholar, his two most recent books are The Professoriate: Prole of a Profession (2005) and Education, Change and Society (2007). Don F. Westerheijden works as senior research associate at the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS), University of Twente, where he co-ordinates research related to quality management and is involved in the co-ordination of PhD students. He is a member of the editorial boards of some journals related to quality in higher education. His research interests include comparative studies of institutional and systematic impacts of internal and external quality assurance in Europe, impacts of the Bologna process and impacts of rankings. He has been active as consultant and trainer for universities and governments in, amongst others, Central and Eastern Europe, for UNESCO and SEAMEO. Since 2005, he has been involved in the ProfQim project in Vietnam. Richard Winter is Senior Lecturer in the School of Management, Marketing and International Business, The Australian National University. His research areas include the management, motivation and performance of academics in environments of corporate reform. His current research examines schisms in academic identity based on conicting ideologies and values systems. In December 2007, Richard was Visiting Scholar at the Ho Chi Minh National Political Academy of Vietnam, in Hanoi.

Contributors

Ta Thai Anh School of Management, Marketing and International Business, The Australian National University, Australia, anh.ta@anu.edu.au Nguyen Thi Ngoc Bich Faculty of Education, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam, bich959@yahoo.com Leon Cremonini Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands, l.cremonini@utwente.nl Nguyen Quang Dong Dean of Economics and Mathematics, National Economics University, Hanoi, Vietnam, dongktqd@fpt.vn Roelien Van Empel Netherlands Quality Agency (NQA), Utrecht, The Netherlands, empel@nqa.nl Kiri Evans NSW Department of Education and Training; Sydney, NSW, Australia, evans.rorris@ozemail.com.au Marea Fatseas Ideas Connect PTY Ltd, Kingston, ACT 2604, Australia, mf@ideasconnect.com.au Grant Harman Centre for Higher Education Management and Policy, University of New England, Armidale, Australia, gharman@une.edu.au Kay Harman Dean of Graduate Studies, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia, kharman@une.edu.au Dao Van Khanh International Relations Department, Can Tho University, Can Tho, Vietnam, khanhdao2009@gmail.com Martin Hayden School of Education, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia, mhayden@scu.edu.au Pham Thanh Nghi Institute of Human Studies, Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences, Hanoi, Vietnam, ptnghi2008@gmail.com Le Thi Bich Ngoc Finance and Accounting Department, National Economics University, Hanoi, Vietnam, lbngoc@bsneu.edu.vn

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Adam Rorris Centre for Policy Development, Newtown, NSW 2042, Australia, evans.rorris@ozemail.com.au; arke99@hotmail.com Larry Smith School of Business, Economics and Public Policy, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 3251, Australia, lsmith35@une.edu.au Robert Spoo University of Tulsa College of Law, Tulsa, USA, robert-spoo@utulsa.edu Elizabeth St. George AusAID-Australian Embassy, Jl. H.R. Rasuna Said Kav. C 15-16, Jakarta 12940, Indonesia, elizabeth.st.george@ausaid.gov.au Lam Quang Thiep Thang Long University, Hanoi, Vietnam, lqthiep@gmail.com Dao Anh Tuan Patent Attorney, Business Software Alliance, Hanoi, Vietnam, tuandao61@gmail.com Richard Winter School of Management, Marketing and International Business, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia, richard.winter@anu.edu.au Don F. Westerheijden Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands, d.f.westerheijden@utwente.nl. Anthony R. Welch International Institute for Educational Development, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia, a.welch@usyd.edu.au