The online education market in Vietnam has high potential for development with an estimated value of billions of dollars, although barriers still exist.

A recent article in VietnamNet Bridge has analised the booming of online education in Vietnam. E-learning or online education appeared in Vietnam about 10 years ago, but has only been flourishing in the last three years.

The potential is very high

Currently, Vietnam has 23 educational institutions offering online education programmes, attracting over 87,000 students, mostly in HCMC Open University and Hanoi Open University.

By 2016, Vietnam had 150 start-ups in online education sector which provide education programmes on different subjects, many in English language, professional and soft-skill training. The online education market is promising with 40 percent of population accessing the internet.

Vietnam is an attractive online education market not only for domestic, but also for foreign investors, especially from Asia, such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore.

The managing director of Topica, one of leading companies in online education, predicted in the next 10 years, 50% of Vietnamese students will follow some kinds of online training courses at their schools.

Existing barriers

Vietnam lack strict regulations to ensure the quality of online education programmes. The Ministry of Education is looking to ensure the online education quality by applying the procedures and criteria on quality accreditation in line with the ASEAN universities’ standards and consulting the standards of other advanced nations in the world. Earlier this year, the Ministry had support from The Government of Australia in developing an online education quality assurance tool which sets up a series of criteria to help evaluate online and half-online education programmes.

Other barriers come from the existing perception of many parents and students who still believe that teaching is effective only with real classes and teachers. And the majority of Vietnamese have the habit of using apps and software free of charge and don’t want to pay for online training courses.

Refer to following links for further information:

http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/education/188256/online-education-booms-in-vietnam.html

http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/education/175218/online-education--which-model-can-succeed-.html