A spotlight on Vietnam’s TNE and outbound study market

Vietnam was among the four countries that were spotlighted at The PIE News’ Live TNE & Tech Virtual Conference held in March 2021. The virtual event gathered over 60 speakers in the global education industry to share insights about the use of Tech in learning, student recruitment and transnational education policy and practice.

Lien Ta, Senior Education Services Manager, British Council Vietnam, participated in the ‘Country Spotlight Vietnam’ session, which featured contributions from other experts in ELT, recruitment and university partnerships in Vietnam and abroad. The panel shared the latest insights about the national education landscape, the potential for TNE and the appetite for outbound study of Vietnamese students.

Vietnam is an evolving education destination with opportunities for international partnerships in all education sectors, including school, language learning, vocational and higher education.

British Council, for many years, has supported the TNE development between UK and Vietnamese institutions through various activities including policy dialogues, institutional relationships brokering and consultancy. In 2019, British Council produced a report on TNE in Vietnam, providing updated information about regulations, the market situation, in-demand subject areas and cooperation models, and the attitude of students, universities and government officials in relation to TNE. Some of the findings of this report was shared by Lien Ta during the session.

 As an emerging TNE destination, Vietnam has the advantages of an open policy, the eagerness of local institutions and an increasing appetite of students for international qualifications, as well as attractive offers for international students.

These are key enablers for the development of TNE in various forms, provided that foreign institutions are aware of “two-way” learning, a “win-win” environment and a long-time investment process in TNE in Vietnam. These were the key takeaways about TNE shared by some panel speakers during the event.

Currently, the post-secondary outbound student recruitment market in Vietnam still has the potential to grow due to the fast increasing of the middle-income class, open national policy for outbound study and existing lack of top-tier local universities.

However, panel speakers also shared the same view that the Vietnam student recruitment market has become increasingly competitive as students now have many options between traditional and new study destinations and the offers of in-country TNE programmes.

Covid-19 has made significant impact on the recruitment market in Vietnam and will accelerate the division of market share between study destinations. Concern about safety and bullying has become the first and most important consideration of families when sending their children to study abroad at post-secondary level.

A continuous high demand for international qualifications, increasing momentum for digital mobility and affordable, quality EdTech solutions will bring a lot of changes to the Vietnam international education market.

That was the key market observation shared by all the panel speakers when speaking about the development of Vietnam education market in the near future.

Lien Ta shared her experience of joining the PIE event “It was a great experience for me to join the country spotlight event as one of the panel speakers to share my knowledge and observation about education policies and practice in Vietnam. Market insights shared by other panel speakers were also very useful and practical. I received a good number of engagement and enquiries during and after the live event. I think Country Spotlight session of the PIE Live event was a very good idea as it provided an insightful snapshot and critical market observations for education practitioners who are now focusing on developing business in a particular market”.

Please contact Lien Ta, Senior Education Services Manager, International Education Services, British Council Vietnam for further information or to discuss our education services in British Council Vietnam.