Historical trends of vietnamese international student mobility

Abstract

This chapter aims to explore the diverse trends of Vietnamese student mobility that are facilitated as one of the internationalisation strategies in education adopted by the Vietnamese Government to enhance graduates’ capacity for competition in the global labor market. While the Vietnamese student movements from the early twentieth century to 1986 were mostly shaped by political purposes, the current trend is influenced by socio-political and diplomatic transformations in Vietnam, as well as changes in internationalisation practices in higher education and education migration schemes in some host countries. In this chapter, the author argues that under the effects of Vietnam’s global integration, the current government is taking an ambivalent approach to internationalising its higher education system by sending students to study overseas to meet the demands for skilled human capital through multilateralism and at the same time, trying to attract and retain this stock of human capital through diaspora strategies. Vietnamese student outward mobility and students’ return can be seen as a diplomatic, political, economic and innovative commodity for Vietnam’s socio-economic development and participation in the global labor market.