Bilateral cooperation in education has turned a new page since the signing of a memorandum of understanding during Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s visit to the US in June 2008.

Under the terms of the pact, Vietnam and the US agreed to set up a task force in charge of education to encourage Vietnamese students, especially postgraduates and the holders of doctorates, to study in the US.

Both countries also agreed to increase education programmes to update Vietnamese students with the skills they need for an economy that is currently going through a modernisation process.

A series of conferences and forums discussing cooperation in education between Vietnam and the US have been held. Worthy of note was a seminar on tertiary education, which took place earlier this year and drew representatives from 250 universities and colleges from both countries.

Participants in the seminar suggested that both parties step up exchanges between universities and colleges, increase the number of Vietnamese lecturers studying for doctorates in the US, improve the quality of English language training for Vietnamese students and assist Vietnam to design a system to examine the quality of education as well as training people to operate it.

Together with help from the government, the Institute of International Education (IIE) in Vietnam has worked to connect US universities and Vietnamese students together by hosting a wide range of exhibitions on education in the Southeast Asian country, each drawing thousands of visitors.

The annual report, Open Door 2009, released by the IIE shows that, for the first time, Vietnam ranked among the top 10 nations in terms of the number of students studying in the US in 2009, with close to 13,000 students. Vietnam also saw the highest growth of 46.2 percent, in the number of students who are pursuing their studies in the country.

The Fulbright Programme, which was re-established in the 1990s, has provided funding to help 950 Vietnamese and US students, scholars and teachers to study, conduct research and teach in various fields in both countries.

The Vietnam Education Foundation (VEF), which was initiated by former President Bill Clinton and funded by the US Government, has so far granted scholarships to more than 300 Vietnamese officials to attend 70 postgraduate training courses in the US. These VEF alumni now hold high positions in Vietnamese businesses, ministries and sectors and have contributed greatly to promoting Vietnam-US relations.

In addition, the VEF has also financed the building of centres of excellence for scientific research and training under the World Bank’s Millennium Science Initiative (MSI) and Vietnam ’s OpenCourseWare in 14 universities.

The US Ambassador to Vietnam Michael Michalak said that his country is planning to set up US Centres using the IIE, expand the Fulbright Programme and look for more Vietnamese partners for US universities and colleges to attract more Vietnamese students.

In 2011, the US will send three or four experts to Vietnam to help it build the system to verify the quality of university education.