The United States, through US Agency for International Development (USAID), on Monday launched a five-year, $14.2 million partnership with three leading Vietnamese universities.
The Partnership for Higher Education Reform, announced by Vice President Kamala Harris last year in Hanoi, will collaborate with universities, key government officials, and industry partners to strengthen higher education in Vietnam.
Participants at the launching event
Speaking at the event, US Ambassador Marc Knapper said that through this partnership, together, they would collectively improve the quality and market-relevance of higher education to drive lasting growth.
The partnership will work to achieve three objectives for the universities: increase sustainability and autonomy; improve academic quality; and strengthen research and innovation capacity. Core activities will strengthen university governance and financial systems, provide faculty training in the design of state-of-the-art courses, facilitate research collaborations, expand research capacity, and develop guidelines and incentives for prosperous partnerships between universities and the private sector.
The Partnership for Higher Education Reform is the product of an extensive consultation process between USAID and the three largest Vietnamese universities, with numerous relevant entities such as the Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Science and Technology, Indiana University, and the World Bank. Industry partners during implementation will include Purdue University, Amazon Web Services, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, among others. The partnership helps advance higher education reforms that were called for under Vietnam’s 2018 Revised Law on Higher Education.
