Welcome to the VNF

The Vietnamese government has an ambitious plan to educate 20,000 new PhD’s by 2020. These new PhD’s would staff the leading Vietnamese universities. While this long-term plan will help, it will not address the immediate needs of the country for better quality education to meet Vietnam’s growing demand.

To address the immediate problem, the Vietnam Foundation will establish junior faculty development centers at several universities around the country.  These centers will operate on an “in service” model, where faculty will not need to leave their current jobs to participate.  We will use proven development models to train faculty using modern teaching methods which mean better instructional materials, student learning-based teaching methods and appropriate education technology, monitoring and evaluating of student progress, and professional networking.

Participants will share their knowledge, experiences and outcomes with colleagues.  As a part of the training, participants will prepare their own development plans to use in their universities.  Follow-up evaluation will be performed by the Foundation to access the impact of the training.  We will assist each participating university in developing a sustainable professional environment that facilitates the implementation of new methods of teaching.

Initially, faculty development centers will be staffed with American volunteer faculty and others with expertise in modern teaching methods with student-based learning approach. After several cycles of training, the participating universities will assume a day-to-day operation of the centers with minimal oversight from the Foundation.