Higher Education in Market-Oriented Socialist Vietnam

This book inspects higher education reform in market-oriented socialist Vietnam, with a focus on newness narratives and enquiry. Engaging in dialogic conversations with global and regional forces and exploring convergences in the domains of policy, curriculum, research, pedagogy, and society, chapter authors analyse ideologies that have entered Vietnam’s educational landscape. Chapters include discussions of post-Soviet legacies, socialist thought, privatization, neoliberalism, global rankings, academic freedom, autonomy, and elitism, as well as the actors, discourses and practices through which they manifest. In so doing, authors’ commentaries juxtapose phenomena in Vietnam with other national contexts such as the Philippines, Brunei Darussalam, Japan, Australia, and Trinidad and Tobago.

“Challenged by the Soviet legacy, Vietnamese scholars seek to position themselves mindfully amid contestations of socialist, Confucian, and neoliberal ideas. In the flow of multiple interpretations shaping market-oriented universities, one can find it difficult to understand historical, political, and cultural underpinnings of transformative phenomena. What policy frameworks and institutional innovations create is often mind-boggling. This volume brings together a remarkable group of scholars and policy makers to delve critically into the complexities of systemic and institutional changes in Vietnam. The included chapters illuminate a wide range of concerns confronting intellectuals not only in Vietnam but also across the post-Soviet Eurasia. As they pursue reconciliation between traditional values and pragmatic purposes of modernization, they are urged to answer the increasing number of difficult questions regarding competition and restructuration of powers.”
—Anatoly Oleksiyenko, Associate Professor of Higher Education, Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong

“Phan Le Ha and Doan Ba Ngoc and their colleagues offer a refreshingly critical set of perspectives that advance our understanding of higher education in Vietnam in “new” directions. They situate Vietnam not just as an object of study but as an analytic category to explore the contested process of internationalisation. This book is a must-read for scholars and practitioners of higher education in Vietnam as well as for anyone who engages with critical questions on the future of higher education reform.”
—Stephanie K. Kim, Assistant Professor of Practice and Faculty Director of Higher Education Administration, Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies, USA

“Vietnam is emerging as a dynamic economic player in both Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific region.  Higher education is an important factor in Vietnam’s impressive development.  In a new comprehensive volume on higher education in Vietnam, Phan Le Ha and Doan Ba Ngoc have assembled a diverse and talented group of 29 contributors to address insightfully and often critically the major aspects of higher education in Vietnam. The analysis of Vietnamese higher education is guided by a clear theoretical framework, institutional logics and how three major ideologies, Confucianism, socialism, and neoliberalism have influenced the development of Vietnamese higher education, but have also contributed to its fragmentation.  A major theme of the volume is the diverse players involved in Vietnamese higher education and there is a careful look at the future of Vietnamese higher education and its dynamic new directions. This volume represents a valuable contribution to higher education studies, policy studies, comparative education, and Southeast Asian Studies.”
—Gerald W. Fry, Distinguished International Professor, University of Minnesota, USA

Phan Le Ha is Senior Professor in the Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education at the Universiti Brunei Darussalam where she is also Head of the International and Comparative Education Research Group. While in Brunei, she remains affiliated with the Department of Educational Foundations in the College of Education at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA.

Doan Ba Ngoc was Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of South Australia.