Vietnamese
From November 20, foreign universities that wish to establish their branches in Vietnam must be those lawfully established and operating abroad and be among the top 500 universities in the World University Rankings in one of the latest three years.
Such is a salient point of Decree 124/2024/ND-CP dated October 5, which is designated to revise several articles of Decree 86 issued in 2018, on foreign investment cooperation in the education sector, ensuring conformity with the 2018 Law on Higher Education, the 2019 Education Law, the 2020 Investment Law as well as other relevant legal documents.
Under the new Decree, Vietnam-based branches of foreign universities will operate according to the training and accreditation standards of the foreign universities, provided that the standards on physical foundations and lecturers must not be lower than those applicable to Vietnamese education institutions.
As for joint training activities, the new regulation says that foreign higher education institutions that wish to carry out joint training activities with Vietnamese ones must be licensed by authorities of their home countries for providing training and issuing degrees in the disciplines under joint training programs, or they must possess a valid certificate of education quality accreditation.
In addition, training programs of a foreign country to be provided in Vietnam must be licensed by the authorities of such country or must have a valid certificate of quality accreditation issued by a lawful quality accreditation institution.
Regarding early childhood and general education, the Decree stipulates that, to be taught in Vietnam, foreign early childhood and general education programs must be recognized by foreign authorities in charge of education, or have their quality accredited. Such programs must be those already taught in foreign countries for at least five years and conform to Vietnam’s education goals.
Worthy of note, Decree 124 requires the names of foreign-invested education institutions to be clear so as to avoid misunderstanding about the organization and operation of the institutions. Moreover, it is prohibited to give foreign-invested universities the names that are identical or confusingly similar to the names of the registered education institutions, enterprises implementing investment projects, or non-governmental organizations. In addition, their names may neither cause confusion about their rankings nor contain words or symbols that violate the historical traditions, culture, ethics, and fine customs of Vietnam.- (VLLF)
