Vietnam seeks to boost educational cooperation with UK

In an interview with Vietnam News Agency’s correspondent in the UK, Minister Nha said he signed a MoU with Education Minister of Wales Kirsty Williams on cooperation in training, policy dialogue, and experience sharing in educational management and research cooperation between Vietnamese educational institutions and those from Wales.

Notably, the Wales administration, through its Global Wales fund, will provide Vietnam with 20 full scholarships for postgraduate students each year from 2020-2022 to pursue study at universities in Wales under the Chevening Scholarships programme of the UK Government.

Through discussions on educational reform with ministers of many countries across the world at the World Education Forum, participants learned and shared many experiences, especially in applying information technology in teaching and learning, Nha said.

Vietnam is on the right track in this field, he stressed, adding that he talked with representatives from technology companies at the World Education Technology Expo.

Everyone expects that Vietnam will be one of the fast moving countries in applying this technology in the sector, he said.

According to Nha, Vietnam registered to host the World Education Technology Exhibition in Ho Chi Minh City in March 2019, which is hoped to draw many educational technology development companies and global educators to Vietnam, especially UK educational institutions.

Educational technology and English are two important tools to create breakthroughs in improving the quality of education in Vietnam, he said.

Through the visit, many big universities, English centres, publishers, companies and large corporations providing English-related services such as Cambridge and Pearson are very interested in Vietnamese education and want to enter Vietnam to join the National Foreign Language Project of Vietnam in teaching and assessing the quality, Nha noted.

The Minister affirmed that he believes in Vietnam’s training integration strategy and the UK will be an important partner in the field.