Cross-Border Education for Enhancing University and Enterprise Partnership: Current and Future Challenges for HCMC Pham Thi Ngoc Anh A/P Dr Christopher Ziguras

Cross-Border Education in Vietnam Student Mobility During the Cold War, destinations of students from the North and South diverged markedly, many government funded Now 90% are privately funded, most self-funded students are from HCMC 44,038 students abroad for a year or more according to UNESCO Outbound mobility ratio is 2.5, compared with 9.9 for Singapore and 5.4 for Malaysia Program and Institutional Mobility Since 1980s foreign education presence under international education joint programs In 1990s, education collaboration mainly in postgraduate study for opening economy In 2000s, collaboration expansion to undergraduate and professional education for global integration

Modes of cross-border education delivery in HCMC JOINT PROGRAMSFOREIGN PROGRAMS collaboration transnational -foreign programs -under partnership agreement with local providers -leading or not leading to oversea study credit transfer -local programs -under partnership agreement with foreign providers -leading or not leading to oversea study advanced articulation -local programs -with government funding -under partnership agreement with foreign providers -leading or not leading to oversea study franchise -foreign programs branch campus -foreign programs

Factors affecting level of transnational provision 1.English: low levels of English communication proficiency among secondary school leavers 2.Partnerships: legal restrictions creating impact on potential partners, service scope, and target students (Gov. Decree 06/2000/ND-CP) 3.Timing: rate of growth now in Vietnam is much more rapid than in established transnational education hubs

Result of national evaluation for English teachers (2011) (conducted on request of National Project of Improving English competency of high school leavers in Vietnam until 2020) Data source: retrieved on June 22 nd, 2012http://tuoitre.vn RMIT University©2008 Information Technology Services 5

6 Malaysia Singapore Vietnam International Students in Australian Universities Data source: Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations

Aligning learning with needs of enterprises Students are trained to be aware of “what is waiting for them in multi-culture working environment” with “professional soft skill development woven into course design” Edexcel: education for employment RMIT University: work-integrated learning AIT: corporate internship Cross-border education tends to be concentrated in fields of high demand in labour market

Current challenges Legal framework for cross border delivery Restriction on potential partners Restriction on scope of services Restriction on student recruitment Shortage of education programs that train students with the qualities valued by employers Disconnection between corporate demand and education design Not enough lecturers’ exposure to working environment Not enough corporate taking education role Policy factorsWhere we are now Adapted from “Global Context of Tertiary Eductaion”, Edexcel 2009 Educational factors

Current challenges Skills Attitudes Knowledge Qualities valued by employers, Edexcel 2009

Future challenge GOVERNMENT CORPORATE INSTITUTION success Adapted from “Models of corporate-based education (Nha, 2009)

Conclusions Beginning of project, based on desk research that needs to be informed by interviews and detailed data collection Clearly rapid growth in participation in all forms of cross-border higher education in HCMC, alumni from these programs are now working in all sectors of businesses and industry Cross border education programs proliferate in areas of labour- market demand Difficult for local enterprises to engage with foreign providers without a commercial presence in HCMC but more opportunities for foreign providers operating in HCMC 11

Questions & Answers Thank you! 12