The Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) plans to send 500 lecturers training abroad this year.

This is part of a scheme to have 20,000 lecturers trained at the doctoral level at an estimated cost of US$700 million from now until 2010.

According to the scheme, around 38 percent of the trainees will get the degree abroad and 47 percent, in Vietnam. The scheme aims to equip them with foreign language and necessary knowledge for both overseas and home training.

The MoET’s Overseas Training Department said that it has received 570 applications, of which 425 applied for doctorate degrees while 142 others for master degrees and the remaining for internship.

Selected lecturers will be sent to Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, the UK, the US and New Zealand.