The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) to improve the quality of Vietnamese higher education. 

Delegates attend the signing ceremony. Photo: USAID/Vietnam

MoET Minister Nguyen Kim Son and USAID/Vietnam Mission Director Aler Grubbs signed the MOU on September 9.

The MOU builds upon USAID’s decade-long cooperation with Vietnam on higher education partnership programs. The MOU expands USAID’s support to MoET to advance Vietnam’s higher education to be even more innovative and competitive.

“We applaud the Government of Vietnam on its reforms to build a globally-competitive higher education system,” said Mission Director Grubbs during remarks delivered at the ceremony.

“This first-ever MOU between USAID and the Ministry of Education and Training marks our ongoing commitment to collaborate on a wide range of higher education partnership programs that will directly support MOET’s ambitious higher education reform goals,” she added.

Vietnam’s 2018 Revised Law on Higher Education is prompting significant changes to move the country toward a more open higher education system. The law sets out details for public universities to have new authorities around curriculum, recruitment, enrollments, and resource mobilization and management. 

USAID supports Vietnam’s efforts to modernize its higher education system. In partnership with US higher education institutions and the private sector, USAID is helping Vietnamese universities to improve academic quality and enhance institutional governance to serve as modern models of higher education and drive Vietnam’s socio-economic development. 

Many of these programs have connected Vietnamese universities with leading US higher education institutions and private sector companies to develop innovations in teaching and learning, accreditation, curriculum reform, research, and university and industry linkages.

With the signing of the MOU, USAID will support MoET with a new project that will provide direct technical assistance to review and improve higher education policies. Improving policies will advance university autonomy, quality assurance, digital transformation, and innovations in key sectors that are critical to Vietnam’s continued economic growth and development.