The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) made significant efforts in coordination with the entire education sector in 2016 with a view to improving the higher education training quality. To name a few:

• Renovating methods of teaching, learning and student assessment under Vietnam Escuela Nueva (VNEN) project.
• Closely managing the opening of training programmes, putting a stop to the opening of some training branches showing signs of excess manpower, such as training for teaching staff at universities and colleges or Accounting, Business Administration and Banking and Finance degrees at facilities in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
• Halting distant learning programmes for teachers, declined enrolment for lower levels of universities and reform doctoral degree training with a view to improving training quality.
• Promulgating the Vietnam National Quality Framework to enable educational institutions to build up graduation standards, and improve training programmes to facilitate Vietnam’s regional and international integration.

As of October 2016, Vietnam has 239 tertiary education facilities, including 179 public and 60 private ones. 

So far, 44 training programmes have been verified as meeting the standards of the ASEAN University Network (AUN), 16 programmes as approaching the standards of the French Engineering Degree Commission (CTI) and two programmes with standards set by the US’ Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).

Source
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/education/169618/vn-education-sector-and-comprehensive-reform-efforts.html

Commentary by Nga Bui, Education Services Manager

Vietnam launched a Higher Education Reform Agenda (HERA) in 2006, aiming to achieve ambitious goals of bringing its higher education system to international standards by 2020.  This is seen to be a holistic change requiring substantial upgrading in the academic programmes and curricula, capacity building for academic and management staff, renovation of the system governance.  Vietnam has taken the international cooperation as a major approach in this agenda. 

Various changes have been made over the past ten years; more than 400 transnational education (TNE) programmes were set up as a result; a large number of new higher education institutions were established.  However, without a detailed roadmap and guidelines from the macro level, Vietnam had to face many challenges in training quality and management,.

By June 2016, there are 67 TNE programmes set-up between British and Vietnamese educational institutions, of which 57 programmes are active, and the remaining have become inactive or expired without being extended.  The majority of the active programmes are at undergraduate level and Management-related subjects.