Vietnam’s education and lessons from the U.S. Education Crisis Management

On 21^stNovember 2018, Vietnam-U.S. Friendship Association organized the Conference “Vietnam’s education and lessons from the U.S. Education Crisis Management”. Madame Dam Bich Thuy, President of Fulbright University Vietnam and Dr. Huynh The Du, Lecturer at Fulbright School of Public Policy and Management jointly attended the Conference as expert panelists.

The conference examined the question whether Vietnam has been undergoing educational crisis. Dr. Huynh The Du presented empirical evidence to support his belief that large-scale crisis is not yet present in Vietnam’s education; however a faith crisis in education quality is prominent and exacerbated by recent scandals in high school exam cheating.

Considering some indicators such as Human Development Index, budget spending for education, and years spent in school, Vietnam shows great investment in education and ranks high on world’s education map.

Nonetheless, tertiary education quality is alarmingly degrading given high unemployment rate of graduates and increasing trend of parents and students’ preferences for international education.

From first hand experiences in administering an education model incorporating U.S. education excellence into Vietnam contexts, Madame Dam Bich Thuy – President of Fulbright University Vietnam shared Fulbright School ‘s initiative of Co-Designers Year during which students are active stakeholders in designing their curriculum.

Madame President explained: “This is Fulbright University’s choice of how we built our education after extensive review of other outstanding educations around the world. We believe that our choice helps us build a training program suitable to modern contexts. More importantly, both instructors and learners are accountable for their learning progress.”