VietNamNet Bridge reported that many Vietnamese universities have started to include English as one of the criteria in their student enrolment plans for this 2019-2020 academic year. For example, Foreign Trade University (FTU) in Hanoi for the first time will admit new students based on their high school performance and English competency. Applicants are required to have an IELTS certificate score of 6.5, or a TOEFL PBT of 550 or TOEFL iBT of 90 points. The University of Technology in Ho Chi Minh City requires first- and second-year students to pass an English test based on an IELTS format and receive at least a 6.0 score.

According to the Head of the Higher Education department at the Ministry of Education and Training, under the Vietnam Higher Education Law, universities are allowed to assess applicants based on their international language certificates (SAT, IELTS...) or national high school exam results in combination with their high school marks. This English admission criterion helps promote the study of foreign languages in high school. “If universities have better foreign language competency, they will more likely apply training programmes and processes of developed countries to improve the quality of Vietnamese higher education,” the Head said. “This shows that Vietnam’s higher education is gradually integrating with the world, which will also improve recognition of our degrees in other countries and prepare for worker mobility internationally.”

Read the full article at https://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/education/215954/many-universities-set...

Comments from Lien Ta, Senior Education Service Manager of British Council Vietnam:
The National English Project 2020 sets a target that one hundred percent of Vietnamese university students will achieve English level B2 when graduating in year 2020. Therefore, including English as one of university entrance criteria from this school year can be considered as one preparation step of Vietnamese universities in order to achieve that ambitious target. Besides, this movement will also create good conditions for those universities to develop student exchange activities with foreign institutions, which is a kind of international partnership activity that many universities in Vietnam are now interested in developing with other countries, including the UK.