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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