Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung recently issued a decision by which Vietnam will halt setting up new universities in cooperation with foreign governments until at least 2020.
 
The focus now is shifted to upgrading the existing two National Universities in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City into leading universities to regional and global standards.
 
In the upcoming time, the three existing ODA-funded universities in the New Model University Project, including Vietnamese-German University (VGU), the Vietnam-France University (University of Science and Technology of Hanoi - USTH), and the Vietnam-Japan University, will be developed into international standard universities of Vietnam.  However, the management of VGU and USTH will be put under the National University in HCMC and the Institute of Science and Technology respectively. 
 
The New Model University Project set an ambitious goal to build up international standard universities to be listed in the top 200 universities in the world by 2020.
 
This vision appears to be difficult to realise given the current status of Vietnamese universities with only three in the top 300 in Asia by topuniversities.com ranking while the top Vietnamese university ranks 23,650 globally, according to Webmetrics Ranking of World Universities 2014.
 
 
Commentary
 
Partnership in Vietnam often takes time.  UK institutions are advised to be selective, start small and stay sustainable in any partnership activity in Vietnam.  Partnership at institutional level is more direct and under better control because both sides are able to take more autonomy in the partnership subject to valid authority approval.  However, a clear funding scheme and contribution from each party should be discussed openly ahead the commencement of the partnership.