Socialist Republic of Vietnam

During online talks with VietNamNet yesterday, VEF founder Thomas Vallely, shared his ambition to establish an international university in Vietnam was well as views on Vietnam’s economy and relations with the US.

Vietnam’s economy and relations with America

The US embargo on Vietnam was lifted a mere decade ago, and with normalisation of relations, America has become the largest purchaser of Vietnamese export goods. Though Europe has the same or even bigger economic scale and competitiveness, it is still the US that is Vietnam’s largest trade partner, Vallely insists.

Currently, USA is Vietnam’s 11th largest foreign investor, although it should more realistically be 2nd or 3rd, however hindrances caused by Vietnam’s muddy investment policies have held the US off becoming the lead investor.

Vietnam attracts a lot of investment funds, but the distribution of those investments is inefficient and financial systems are underdeveloped. Furthermore, too much money is spent on weak industries. A lot of money is being used to speculate on land, which is artificially inflating the market. The price of land in Vietnam is similar to that in Japan, yet Vietnam’s income per head is US$800 compared to Japan’s $30,000.

“So, Vietnam’s problem is not a lack of money, but rather the use of it, especially the use of money for the modernisation course,” he stressed.

Now Vietnam is striving to join the WTO, which is a positive move. Joining the WTO will make further changes in Vietnam’s economic structure that will help Vietnam to become more competitive.

One VietNamNet reader asked, “How can Vietnam and the USA tie their relations?”

Thomas said the key is the Vietnamese community in the US. Besides that, cultural understanding, which could be achieved through cooperation in education, is crucial.

Education in Vietnam

Vietnam has a big market for education because Vietnamese people have the long tradition of respecting knowledge. The good thing is that there has appeared competition in Vietnam’s education. However, education in Vietnam will need a fundamental change to develop true competitiveness.

He suggested Vietnam examine education systems to identify a particular model that fits. The method of “direct guidelines from upper authorities” should be replaced with the motto of “creating competition” in education.

He also said Vietnam should establish indigenous universities of international standards like Thamasak University in Thailand or Qing Hua in China instead of importing from overseas.

The key is that the government should give the universities the autonomy and let them self-govern and compete with one another.

Fulbright Economics Teaching Program- an education link between Vietnam and America

Fulbright Economics Teaching Program (Fulbright Vietnam) is one of the three milestones that mark the cooperation in education between Vietnam and America, the other two being Fulbright scholarship and VEF scholarship. Fulbright Vietnam is US’s investment into Vietnamese humans. The purpose of the program is to search for and to educate the talents. At Fulbright Vietnam, 20% to 30% of the learners are university lecturers.

Thomas reveals that in January 2006, there will be an economic course that runs for one month in HCM City with the participation of around 100 people. The registration form will be posted online in several months. There are courses on three or four important fields: business management, the cost of lacking an efficient regulating system, precise understanding of accounting systems and regulation systems, especially for listed companies.

Fulbright is offering OpenCourseWare, which are online materials that can be accessed from anywhere. Thomas said, “Our purpose is to build a system of documents (sponsored by VietNamNet) that can be used by anyone to self- study and by any universities for their class activities.”

In the future, Fulbright Vietnam Centre might be rebuilt to become a university, perhaps a law university.

VietNamNet,
15:05' 20/05/2005 (GMT+7)