26 June 2008
Vietnam, United States to Increase Cooperation on Education
President Bush, Vietnamese prime minister launch education task force
Washington -- Cooperation in education between the United States and Vietnam is set to increase dramatically.
In August, the bilateral Fulbright Program will expand to include the English Teaching Assistants Program, which will place English teaching assistants at Vietnamese universities. The Global Undergraduate Exchange Program will provide scholarships for up to 10 outstanding undergraduate students to study at American two- and four-year educational institutions for up to one academic year. A new master’s degree in public policy will be launched in September under the auspices of the Fulbright Economic Teaching Program, which was founded in 1994 as a partnership between the University of Economics, Ho Chi Minh City, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
In addition, the United States and Vietnam signed a new agreement June 25 to set up an education task force to create more and deeper linkages between the two countries, to increase the number of Vietnamese studying at U.S. colleges and universities and to promote educational programs that will help Vietnam’s modernizing economy.
The agreement was signed at the State Department by James Glassman, the U.S. under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, and Pham Vu Luan, Vietnam’s vice minister of education and training.
Vietnam’s prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, has brought a delegation of Vietnamese officials to the United States, the fourth top-level visit between the two countries in the last four years. Dung met June 24 with President Bush in the Oval Office, and education cooperation was one of the main topics of discussion, Bush said afterward.
“We had a very good discussion,” Bush said. “Our relationship with Vietnam is getting closer, in a spirit of respect.”
Dung agreed in principle to Bush’s proposal for a Peace Corps program in Vietnam, according to a joint statement issued by the White House. Since its creation in the early 1960s, more than 190,000 Peace Corps volunteers have served in 139 host countries, working on issues ranging from AIDS education to information technology and environmental preservation.
“Vietnam will continue to strengthen the fine relationship between Vietnam and the United States,” Dung said through an interpreter after the meeting.
In 2007, the United States issued visas to more than 8,000 Vietnamese students, an increase of 359 percent since 2005.
Michael Michalak, the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, has made expanding education opportunities one of his top priorities. He has committed to doubling the number of Vietnamese students studying in the United States before 2010 and recently hosted an education conference in Vietnam to discuss how to enhance educational programs there.
The State Department-sponsored Fulbright Program awards approximately 7,000 new grants worldwide annually. Started in 1992 with the goal of increasing mutual understanding between the people of the United States and Vietnam, the Vietnam Fulbright Program has expanded to include four elements: the U.S. Scholar Exchange Program, the U.S. Student Exchange Program, the Vietnam Scholar Exchange Program and the Vietnam Student Exchange Program.
It also includes such special programs as the Harvard University-affiliated Fulbright Economics Training Program in Ho Chi Minh City, which is widely credited with giving hundreds of mid-level Vietnamese officials the public policy tools to keep the country on its market-economy-driven path.
The task force created by the new agreement, in addition to encouraging more and deeper linkages and joint programs between American and Vietnamese universities, will consider “the best path to creating a U.S.-model higher education institution in Vietnam with the support of American universities and colleges.” It also will work for simplified procedures to establish new education and exchange programs in Vietnam, according to a State Department fact sheet on the agreement.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, Microsoft Corporation and other public and private partners also have cooperated on a project called TOPIC 64, which has trained more than 85,000 Vietnamese in technology at centers throughout Vietnam.
While visiting a TOPIC 64 center in March, Michalak said the partners have shown what can be done in the future through public-private cooperation. “Your demonstration of what can be achieved by combining the talents of our two governments and private sectors leaves me extremely optimistic about the possibilities for future cooperation in a broad array of fields,” Michalak said.
Prime Minister Dung also participated June 25 in an education round table co-hosted by the Department of State and the Association of American Universities. The discussion focused on the needs of Vietnamese higher education and assistance rendered through United States government and U.S. private sector initiatives, the State Department said.
