Accreditation in Vietnam’s Higher Education System

Abstract

Since the late 1980s the Vietnamese labour market has become increasingly diversified and dynamic, calling for more socially and economically relevant careers. As a result, coordinated efforts to assure the quality of Vietnamese higher education and introduce an accreditation system have recently been initiated. This chapter illustrates the development of accreditation and quality assurance processes in Vietnam, focusing on the contributions of ProfQim, a pilot project funded by the Dutch government. ProfQim supported the General Directory for Educational Testing and Accreditation in the Ministry of Education and Training to establish quality assurance centres and to execute pilot accreditations in select number of Vietnamese universities. The chapter reviews the phases of the 4-year ProfQim project and describes its relationship with the First Higher Education Project, funded by The World Bank, and already running at the time ProfQim was commenced. The chapter points to the strengths, weaknesses and lessons learnt by the convergence of these two projects.