Denmark and Vietnam Cooperates on Education

The Ministers of Education from Denmark and Vietnam have signed a Memorandum of Understanding concerning cooperation in the education area. The agreement will strengthen and support the establishment and development of partnerhips among educational institutions from Denmark and Vietnam. 


Denmark and Vietnam has agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding to guide bilateral cooperation in education in the years to come. The agreement has been signed by Danish Minister of Education ms. Tina Nedergaard and Vietnamese Minister of Education and Training mr. Pham Vu Luan.

Signing by the Vietnamese Minister took place at the Vietnam Forum on Life Long Learning conference in Hanoi on Monday 6 December 2010 in the presence of representatives from the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), Danish Ambassador John Nielsen and representative from the Danish Ministry of Education mr. Jørn Skovsgaard.


In the MoU the Vietnamese and Danish ministers of education commit to giving their full political support to the cooperation activities carried out by the relevant Vietnamese and Danish educational institutions. With the MoU they express their interest in and support to a strengthening of mutually beneficial cooperation and exchanges in this important area for bilateral cooperation. The MoU outlines the already existing cooperation between the different educational institutions.


The Danish School of Education (Aarhus University) and Vietnam Institute of Educational Science will facilitate the establishment of a research team on school curriculum development and teacher training in Vietnam. They will also exchange experiences and cooperate on Lifelong Learning and provide scholarships for Vietnamese students to study in Denmark.


Vietnamese and Danish institutions will exchange experiences in developing strategies and policies in vocational education and training, including conducting study visits of teachers and educators. University College Sealand and Hanoi Medical University are considering cooperating on basic social and healthcare education and training of medical nurses.


University College Sealand has also been cooperating for 6 years with another partner, The National College of Education, in student and staff exchanges and cultural learning and arts education. Currently these two institutions are also planning lifelong learning activities.


Copenhagen University College of Engineering are interested in starting up cooperation with Vietnamese engineering colleges and universities. This could contribute to internationalizing engineering educations at both graduate and undergraduate level to mutual benefit of both countries.


Niels Brock Copenhagen Business School and Foreign Trade University in October 2010 opened the first ever Danish-Vietnamese joint educational program at university level. This means that in Hanoi there are now 50 Vietnamese students studying to obtain an ECTS approved Danish Bachelor’s Degree in Financial Management and Services. An internationally oriented education with daily exchanges of experiences, knowhow, technologies, methods, approaches, challenges, assignments, and ideas between the Danish and Vietnamese society will be of great benefit for the students and give them a good head start when seeking employment after graduation. International companies and organizations in Vietnam and abroad are craving graduates with such skills.


In the MoU both sides agree to develop strategies for education for sustainable development and introduce this in relevant curricula used in basic education, youth education and teacher training in order to establish a link between natural and social sciences and humanities. The MoU suggests that the parties initiate discussion on this issue in order to outline a plan of action in conjunction to the January 2011 Senior Officials Meeting in Denmark leading up to the 3rd ASEM Minister of Education meeting, which will take place in Copenhagen in the spring 2011.


Last but not least, both ministers in the MoU support discussing the setting up of a Danish university college in Vietnam. It is of course still early days for this idea, but Niels Brock Copenhagen Business School has already been quite active in taking the first steps on preparing such a project. Although there are still legal and financial challenges it is the hope that this initiative will materialize within the next few years

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