Pham Thi Ngoc Anh A/P Dr Christopher Ziguras

Cross-Border Education for Enhancing University and Enterprise Partnership:

Current and Future Challenges for HCMC

Pham Thi Ngoc Anh

A/P Dr Christopher Ziguras

Cross-Border Education in Vietnam

Student Mobility

• During the Cold War, destinations of students from the North and South diverged markedly, many government funded

• Now 90% are privately funded, most self-funded students are from HCMC

• 44,038 students abroad for a year or more according to UNESCO

• Outbound mobility ratio is 2.5, compared with 9.9 for Singapore and 5.4 for Malaysia

Program and Institutional Mobility

• Since 1980s foreign education presence under international education joint programs

• In 1990s, education collaboration mainly in postgraduate study for opening economy

• In 2000s, collaboration expansion to undergraduate and professional education for global integration

Modes of cross-border education delivery in HCMC

JOINT PROGRAMS FOREIGN PROGRAMS

collaboration transnational

-foreign programs

-under partnership agreement with local providers

-leading or not leading to oversea study

credit transfer

-local programs

-under partnership agreement with foreign providers

-leading or not leading to oversea study

advanced articulation

-local programs

-with government funding

-under partnership agreement with foreign providers

-leading or not leading to oversea study

franchise

-foreign programs

branch campus

-foreign programs

Factors affecting level of transnational provision

1. English: low levels of English communication proficiency among secondary school leavers

2. Partnerships: legal restrictions creating impact on potential partners, service scope, and target students (Gov. Decree 06/2000/ND-CP)

3. Timing: rate of growth now in Vietnam is much more rapid than in established transnational education hubs

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Malaysia

Singapore

Vietnam

International Students in Australian Universities

Data source: Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations

Aligning learning with needs of enterprises

• Students are trained to be aware of “what is waiting for them in multi-culture working environment” with “professional soft skill development woven into course design”

Edexcel: education for employment

RMIT University: work-integrated learning

AIT: corporate internship

• Cross-border education tends to be concentrated in fields of high demand in labour market

Current challenges

Legal framework for cross border delivery

Restriction on potential partners

Restriction onscope of services

Restriction on student recruitment

Shortage of education

programs that train students

with the qualities valued by employers

Disconnection between corporate demand and education design

Not enough lecturers’ exposure to working environment

Not enough corporate taking education role

Policy factors Where we are now

Adapted from “Global Context of Tertiary Eductaion”, Edexcel 2009

Educational factors

Current challenges

Skills

Attitudes

Knowledge

Qualities valued by employers, Edexcel 2009

Future challenge

GOVERNMENT

CORPORATE

INSTITUTION

success

Adapted from “Models of corporate-based education (Nha, 2009)

Conclusions

• Beginning of project, based on desk research that needs to be informed by interviews and detailed data collection

• Clearly rapid growth in participation in all forms of cross-border higher education in HCMC, alumni from these programs are now working in all sectors of businesses and industry

• Cross border education programs proliferate in areas of labour-market demand

• Difficult for local enterprises to engage with foreign providers without a commercial presence in HCMC but more opportunities for foreign providers operating in HCMC

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Questions & Answers

Thank you!

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