A Study on the Policy and Governance of “New Model Universities” in Vietnam: Focusing on Vietnam-Japan University

Abstract

Owing to “Đổi Mới” in 1986, Vietnam has been striving to improve higher education. Transnational higher education (TNHE) has been diversifying with higher education internationalization, while Vietnam has entered the global higher education market as a receiver country. Adopting the “Higher Education Reform Agenda 2006--2020” (HERA) in 2005 and participating in the WTO in 2017, the Vietnamese government and foreign governments established “New Model Universities”, which have been obtaining financial support from different governments, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). As “international joint universities”, these universities are also regarded as public universities instead of private universities. This paper aims to explore Vietnam-Japan University through historical analysis, document analysis, and field research. Three interviews, with two members of Vietnam- Japan University and one Japanese researcher, were conducted in January and June 2024. This paper aims (1) to discuss the establishment and development from the context of Vietnamese higher education development and the perspective of stable geopolitics; (2) to compare new model universities and explore the governance issues of Vietnam-Japan University; and (3) to provide implications for Taiwan.