Vietnam 2008

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THE STERLING GROUP VIETNAM TOUR 2008

MONDAY 5 – SATURDAY
10 MAY 2008

1. PARTICIPANTS

Professor Julia E King CBE FREng (Aston)

Dr Richard H Scott (Durham)

Dr Alan R Chambers (Southampton)

Professor Paul Harrison (Leeds)

Dr Patrick Olivier (Newcastle)

Professor Andrzej Pacek (Birmingham)

Julia
King: SG President; Richard Scott: SG Chair; Alan Chambers: Executive Committee

2. BACKGROUND

At the July 2007 plenary meeting of the SG it was
agreed that a tour to Vietnam
be organised to explore prospects for SG activities there. The British Council (BC) in Hanoi responded very positively to the
request to organise the tour and entered into all aspects of the planning and
conduct of the tour with considerable enthusiasm.

The SG tour was the focus of a month of activities
organised by the BC to promote UK
engineering excellence in research and teaching. Considerable advance publicity was given by
way of press releases, a quiz for Vietnamese students and a specialised webpage
on the BC’s website. In addition, the BC
prepared a Vietnamese translation of the SG handout for distribution at venues visited
by members of the tour party.

3. ITINERARY

Hanoi

Monday 5 May: Pre-event
briefing at BC Office

Meeting
with interpreters

Evening
reception at BC Office

Tuesday 6 May: Lectures
in the universities

Evening
public lecture by Julia King

Wednesday 7 May: Lectures
in the universities

Evening
flight to Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC)

Thursday 8 May: Meeting
with interpreters at BC Office

Lectures in the
universities

Friday 9 May: Lectures
in the universities

Evening
public lecture by Julia King

Saturday 10 May: Morning:
lectures in the universities

Afternoon:
debriefing meeting at BC Office

The purpose of going to both Hanoi
and HCMC was to get the widest possible overview of university engineering
education in Vietnam
within the limited time available.

4. BC PRE-EVENT
BRIEFING

The Vietnamese economy is in a period of very rapid
expansion: 50% increase in GDP over the last decade.
Expenditure on education has increased by nearly 250% over
the last ten years.
There is 12 years of general education (primary, lower and
upper secondary)
10% of school leaving students go to university (by
entrance examination).
Considerable increase in demand for HE expected, including
education overseas.
87 universities countrywide including two national and
three regional.
The number of private universities is growing but there can
be quality issues.
Need for enhanced training quality and involvement from
business and industry.
Need for additional high quality lecturing staff and
managers. Limited amount of research
undertaken by lecturing staff. Limited resources
due to small State budget and modest tuition fee revenue.
Need to enhance the quality and qualifications of lecturing
staff recognised. A large increase in
staff with MSc and PhD qualifications is desired.
There is a desire to increase standards to international
levels and a whole system of developments is being planned to improve this situation.
Partnerships with foreign institutions considered to be an
important way forward. Joint programmes
and foreign campuses welcomed.
Government wants to launch a strategy of teaching in English.
Memorandum of Collaboration (MoC) signed in March 2008
between UK
and Vietnamese governments to facilitate internationalism and
collaborations. BC has an active
programme to support this.
1700 students went to the UK in 2007, mainly UG, but PG
numbers are increasing.
Students are mainly self funded.
There is a clear divide between the north and south of the
country. Hanoi
is focussed on the UK and
Europe, HCMC on the US and Australia.
Only 10% of the students study engineering
The US
gives far more scholarships than the UK.
The BC considered the timing of this tour to be ideal. The ethos of the SG in representing the best
in UK
engineering teaching and research made it possible to gain much more widespread
entry to the universities than would have been possible by a team focussed
overtly on student recruitment.
Apparently, we were the first in the field and it would not be too much
of an exaggeration to say that our tour was eagerly awaited by both the
universities and the BC.

5. RECEPTION AT
THE BC IN HANOI

The tour opened with a reception at the BC office in
Hanoi. This was attended by about 30 representatives
from industry, government and academia, including Dr Nguyen Thi Huong, Deputy
Director General, Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), and Mr Mark Kent,
British Ambassador.

6. LECTURES

The tour party gave a total of 50 lectures at 19
universities (10 in Hanoi,
9 in HCMC – see Appendix). The lectures
were given with interpreters. Effectively, this halved the length of the
presentations but presented no undue difficulties with the interpreters coping
well with the specialised nature of the subject matter.

Audiences were, typically, a mix of staff and
students, the latter inevitably at different stages in their courses and having
a mixed background knowledge of the subject being presented. Audience size ranged from a few dozen up to
100+. Questions sessions after the
lectures could last up to 45 minutes and sometimes had to be curtailed in order
to keep to the lecture schedule.
Questions were mostly technical but also a included enquiries about UK
education, funding, scholarships etc.
All attendees were issued with a questionnaire by the BC. The total lectures attendance was about 3200.

The public lecture in Hanoi was held in the BC’s office; the
lecture in HCMC in a hotel. Unfortunately,
attendances were slightly disappointing but this is a matter which can be
easily addressed in the future.

7. HANOI TELEVISION

In an interview for Hanoi Television, Julia King
answered questions about the SG and UK education. This is scheduled to be broadcast shortly.

8. BC
POST-EVENT DEBRIEFING

The BC was able to gather a considerable volume of
feedback data from the 80% of the questionnaires which were returned. This will be analysed over the coming weeks
but some general points have already emerged.

The tour was judged a great success by the universities,
the BC and the SG.
Prospects for SG activities are excellent.
Both the SG and the BC learnt much during a week of intense
activity.
The feedback data will be very useful when planning a future
tour

9. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Sterling Group is extremely grateful to all the
BC staff for their hard work and commitment in the organisation and conduct of
this tour.

The financial support and encouragement of the Royal
Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Institution of
Mechanical Engineers, the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the
Institution of Structural Engineers is gratefully acknowledged.

Particular thanks are due to the members of the tour
party

RHS

30/05/08

APPENDIX

Universities
Visited

HANOI

Hanoi University of Technology

University of Civil Engineering

Water Resources
University

University of Natural Sciences

Hanoi Architectural
University

Thang Long
University