Vietnam’s higher education ambitions gather pace

For decades, Vietnam has been one of Asia’s most dynamic outbound student markets, with families investing heavily in overseas education opportunities in destinations such as Australia, the UK, France and the US.

But as the country’s economy accelerates and policymakers pursue ambitious reforms, Vietnam is increasingly positioning itself as a destination for international students, a host for transnational education (TNE), and a partner in global higher education.

Speaking to The PIE News, leaders from two institutions at the forefront of Vietnam’s internationalisation efforts said the country is entering a new phase of development, fuelled by government backing, growing demand for international programs and a desire to build a globally competitive workforce.

Vietnam hosts around 20,000 international students and is aiming to increase that figure to around 35,000 in the next five years, according to Scott Thompson-Whiteside, pro vice-chancellor and general director of RMIT University Vietnam.

The Australian university has operated in Vietnam for 26 years and remains the country’s only fully foreign-owned branch campus.

Thompson-Whiteside said recent government reforms have signalled a clear intention to attract more international providers and deepen global engagement, with around 200 TNE programs already operating in partnership with overseas institutions, particularly from Australia, the UK and Germany.

For Thompson-Whiteside, the trajectory echoes an earlier regional success story.

“I spent eight years in Malaysia when Malaysia was just starting to take off with TNE in the late 90s. I feel like Vietnam is now at a similar moment in time with ambition to grow international partnerships,” he said.

“They are competing with all these other countries, competing with Malaysia and India to attract the best universities to set up foreign branch campuses.”

RMIT Vietnam enrols around 12,000 students, around 95% of whom are Vietnamese, and delivers programs entirely in English, aligned with its Melbourne campus.

For Thompson-Whiteside, the model is increasingly defined by employability and tight alignment with industry needs in a rapidly expanding economy.

“We work very closely with local industry on internships, placements, industry-embedded learning. To be honest, we’ve got more placements than we have students to fill them, because we have many companies knocking on our door.”

“Our students are English speaking, they can easily fit into multinational companies, but we also teach them with a critical mindset, with a creative mindset,” he added.

Vietnam’s rapid economic expansion is also reshaping higher education priorities, with increasing emphasis on science, technology and innovation.

“Vietnam is changing rapidly. GDP was 8% last year. The goal is to have GDP of at least 10% for the next five years. I mean, that’s an incredible growth mark,” he said. “The ambition around science, technology, and innovation is significant.”

Vietnam is changing rapidly. GDP was 8% last year. The goal is to have GDP of at least 10% for the next five years… that’s an incredible growth markScott Thompson-Whiteside, RMIT University Vietnam

That shift is already feeding into institutional planning, explained Thompson-Whiteside: “50% of RMIT Vietnam’s population are  business students. What the Vietnam government need and want is for universities to invest more into STEM. We do have STEM courses, but probably over the next five years that’s going to be an area for us to expand.”

The university is also expanding its research and postgraduate provision.

“We intend to grow our research over the next five years, as indeed the country wants us to invest in research and innovation,” he said, noting that RMIT currently has just over 100 PhD students in Vietnam jointly supervised with Melbourne faculty.

But as Vietnam looks to increasingly attract more international students, Thompson-Whiteside said one challenge is the country’s visa scheme, noting that short initial visas and repeated renewals can create uncertainty for prospective students.

Alongside international branch campuses, Vietnam has also spent the past two decades developing a small number of internationally oriented public universities designed to accelerate capacity building through foreign partnerships. Among them is the University of Science and Technology of Hanoi (USTH), also known as the Vietnam France University.

Tran Dinh Phong, vice rector of USTH, said the institution reflects a broader effort that began in the early 2000s to modernise higher education through international collaboration.

“In the early 2000s, Vietnam started to immerse [itself] in international cooperation, both in economic terms and also, of course, in the higher education and research, so at that time the government had an ambitious program to create new university model,” he said.

“When we talk about a new university model, we try to learn from developed countries with excellent higher education and to quickly catch up the level of higher education and research to support our country’s development.”

USTH now educates around 4,000 students in science and technology disciplines and maintains strong links with French institutions, including visiting professors and joint programs.

A key driver of Vietnam’s internationalisation push is language policy, with the government aiming to establish English as a second language and investing heavily in English teaching across the education system. Despite its French academic origins, USTH teaches in English.

“Our interaction language is English, so that facilitates a lot of international collaboration,” said Phong.

He said that this shift is essential if Vietnam is to expand international mobility in both directions. At USTH, however, two-way mobility is already emerging, with around 200 international students arriving last year for exchanges and internships, while a similar number of Vietnamese students went abroad.

Phong points to Vietnam’s broader economic transformation as a central driver of higher education reform, as the country seeks to move away from low-cost labour towards innovation-led growth.

“We need to have innovation, we need to have technological transfer,” he told The PIE.