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Session 2660

University and Community College Articulation for Engineering and Science Education in Vietnam

Do Ba Khe, Ngo Dinh Thinh California State University, Sacramento

Vietnam is restructuring its higher education system to consolidate separate institutions into multidisciplinary universities, and resurrect the community college concept which was initiated in Vietnam before the end of the Vietnam war, in 1975. This paper reports the articulation between universities and community colleges in Vietnam for engineering and science education, beginning with the1997-98 academic year. Details of curriculum, testing systems, and selection processes are discussed.

Reorganization of Higher Education in Vietnam

The Dual System in Vietnam Prior to the End of the War (1975)

Modern higher education was introduced to Vietnam by the French colonials in the beginning of the twentieth century. By the end of World War II in 1945, the University of Indochina in Hanoi, North Vietnam, was the only higher learning institution for the people of the whole French Indochina; Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Not until 1946, responding to demands of people in the South, the French administrators began to establish a higher education program in Saigon. This was the foundation of the higher education system in the south which, by the end of Vietnam War in 1975, comprised four public universities, five private universities, three community colleges and one private junior college [Ref. 8]. They were influenced by France, and later by the United States.

After the division of Vietnam along the 17th parallel by the Geneva Agreements, from 1954 to 1956, at the elementary and secondary levels in North Vietnam there were two educational systems: the K-12 system, similar to the French tradition, and the K-9 system, in the “liberated” areas. Higher education was divided into two levels; three years for “general degrees,” and three more years for “specialized degrees.” With time, the system evolved toward longer schooling periods, and by 1975 there were thirty higher education institutions, many of which operated “on a reduced scale” [Ref. 5]. This system was influenced by the Soviet Union.

The Unified Educational “Network” in the Reunified Country (1975-95)

The war ended in 1975. The nation was unified; the capital was Hanoi, in the North. It was the beginning of a unified “network” of higher education, patterned after the Northern model with many independent specialized institutions and research

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Khe, D. B., & Thinh, N. D. (1998, June), University And Community College Articulation For Engineering And Science Education In Vietnam Paper presented at 1998 Annual Conference, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/1-2--7486