June 26, 08

NEWS / United States Education Cooperation with Vietnam

n a Memorandum of Understanding signed by United States Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James Glassman and Vietnam Vice Minister of Education and Training Pham Vu Luan, the two countries:

* Expressed their wish to enhance friendship between peoples and cooperation in the field of higher education;
* Recognized the importance of higher education in economic development; and
* Recognized the importance of public-private sector partnerships between American and Vietnamese universities, colleges, and other organizations that support training and education projects.


To develop strategies to deepen cooperation further in higher education, including contacts between educational institutions, they agreed to establish an Education Task Force, which will:

* Encourage more and deeper linkages and joint programs between American and Vietnamese universities (including discussions about the best path to create a U.S. model higher education institution in Vietnam with the support of American universities and colleges, and simplifying procedures to establish new education and exchange programs in Vietnam);
* Increase the number of Vietnamese studying at American universities and colleges, especially PhD students (including the United States’ initiative to facilitate an increase in the number of Vietnamese students studying in universities in the United States at all levels, and the Vietnamese interest in seeing more Vietnamese receiving United States graduate degrees); and
* Promote educational programs designed to help Vietnamese students acquire the skills needed in Vietnam’s modernizing economy.


The two leaders also noted the following recent and upcoming development in bilateral cooperation in education:

* Launch of the Fulbright Economic Teaching Program’s Master’s Degree in Public Policy in September 2008;
* Implementation of the Global Undergraduate program, through which Vietnamese university students will study in the U.S. for one year beginning in September 2008;
* Expansion of the Fulbright Program in August 2008 to include the English Teaching Assistants Program, through which English Teaching Assistants will be placed at Vietnamese universities; and
* Holding an Education Conference hosted by the U.S. Embassy and the Ministry of Education and Training in January 2008 to bring American and Vietnamese universities together.


Prime Minister Dung participated in a Roundtable of Education co-hosted by the Department of State and the Association of American Universities (AAU) on June 25, focusing on the needs of Vietnamese higher education and assistance rendered through United States government and U.S. private sector initiatives.
2008/523

Released on June 25, 2008
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/jun/106242.htm

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