Vietnam Education Crisis II

Good article from Reuters recently on the Vietnam Education Crisis.

We have posted on this before here: Vietnam Education Crisis

But there is a LOT more to be said on the subject, which seems to be heating up and gaining more attention...

FEATURE-Firms struggle to hire skilled professionals in Vietnam

About a year ago, 2,000 of the best and brightest from five of Vietnam's top universities were invited to take a lengthy multiple-choice exam for a shot at a job at Intel Corp.

The giant computer chip maker had broken ground on its biggest factory ever in Vietnam's commercial hub, Ho Chi Minh City, and the $1 billion assembly and test facility, expected to start operations this year, needed good engineers.

It was more than just another big project. The Intel investment would put Vietnam on the global tech map and help a rising star in the manufacturing world move closer to its dream of advancing up the value chain.

But the results from Intel's test cast a spotlight on one of Vietnam's biggest barriers to achieving that dream: its inadequate and inflexible higher education system.

A fraction of the students passed the written exam, covering physics, electrical engineering, maths and other topics. They were given an English test and just 40 made the final cut.

Than Trong Phuc, Intel's country manager for Vietnam, said he was not surprised by the results.

"Is Vietnam a literate society with good people with fundamental skills? Yes," he said. "But do these people already have knowledge about chip-making in place? No. So we have to start from the ground."

...

"The demand for education at the post-secondary level is enormous. Demand way outstrips supply," said Jeffrey Waite, who follows education in Vietnam for the World Bank.

"The system is under enormous pressure to respond by expanding access, and there's always the risk of expanding access at the cost of quality ... Quality is of real concern."

...

"I bet very few graduates could give a correct answer if they were asked 'what is a market economy?'," said one recent graduate who declined to be identified. "But you know what? They made us memorise the Investment Law which took effect in 1987."

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"It's like they want to have their cake and eat it. They know what they want. They want to have one or two of their universities to be top ranked in the world. But they don't want to give away what they have," the World Bank's Waite said.