The ministry proposed investing more than VND35,000 billion in educational facilities, student scholarships, teacher allowances, the training of 20,000 PhDs, and  the teaching of English.

Capital will be sourced from individuals, enterprises, the state budget and overseas development assistance, said Pham Vu Luan, Deputy Minister of Education and Training, who added that the educational investment in Vietnam remains much lower than that in other countries.

Mr Luan said the state has annually increased its spending on tertiary education but this has been mainly for salary reforms in the sector. In the 2002-2006 period, the state budget for tertiary education rose nearly 2.5 times but the average spending per student increased by 1.7 times.