Vietnam Classifies Universities into Three Categories

The Vietnamese government has issued a decree to classify local universities into three categories including research-based, application-based, and experiment-based, reflecting the long-term strategy to develop research capacity of universities while also producing graduates with employment-ready skills. The decree, which reiterates the outline of the Law on Higher Education effective in 2013, provides more specific details among the schools’ functions. It will take effect on October 25. It also ranks schools into three different tiers with the First Tier for schools with students scoring the 30% highest entrance exam scores, Third Tier for schools with students having lowest 30% entrance exam scores and Second Tier for the remaining schools. The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) will provide further guidelines on the issue. The decree states that the categorizations will happen every ten years while the ranking will be done every two years. According to the MOET, starting this 2015-2016 academic year, Vietnam has 217 colleges and 219 universities. (baochinhphu.vn Sept 7, Tin Tuc Sept 8 p5, Thoi Bao KT Sept 8 p2, Nong Nghiep Sept 8 p2, Phap Luat Sept 8 p3)