21 colleges in Vietnam have entered partnership with UK colleges with an aim to improve quality of vocational training through application of UK model of quality assurance system.
The partnerships formed under a signed MOU between the General Department of Vocational Training, Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs and the British Council on a collaboration programme called “Development of vocational training quality assurance in some vocational colleges intensely invested to become high quality colleges”. Since 2015 the collaboration programme has delivered positive impacts to not only participating colleges but also to the other colleges in wider vocational education system. The highlights of the programme are to have six international skills partnership established between five UK colleges and 21 colleges in Vietnam; UK colleges hosted 68 Vietnamese college rectors and senior staff in the UK to learn about UK expertise in skills and quality system; ten visits to Vietnam by UK experts to deliver training to hundreds of vocational teachers on tools, processes and framework quality assurance development; and national seminars organised, documents produced to share and disseminate good practice to education wide system in Vietnam.
Mr Duong Cong Hiep, Vice Rector, Vinh University of Technical Education shared this positive response “Our institution has partnered with Westminster Kingsway College for over three years. This college has supported us to establish international quality assessment centre for vocation training. We have learned a lot from our UK partner college in many areas such as approaches to vocational training, vocational skills assessment, curriculum development, and assessment process following international standards. It can be said that the partnership has made positive impact on improving quality of training of our trainers. Our teaching members have made great changes in their lesson planning and organising teaching and learning. In the three years of partnership with the Westminster Kingsway college, thousands of students have benefited from the improved teaching and learning methods. This is a great success that we highly appreciate from our partnership with the UK college”.
The rector of Can Tho vocational college, Mr Nguyen Trong Son further reported about the partnership between the West College Scotland and partner colleges in Vietnam “Impacts brought from this partnership project are very great. Our UK partner college has supported colleges in Vietnam to develop teaching assessment tools. For the first time, our teachers do self-assessment; receive class observation from education council and their peers, especially they also get feedback from students. Our students actively contribute to the quality of the lessons; provide their feedback and comments to the teaching method. I found that we are successful in changing perceptions of teachers and students about vocational training. In 2017, with recommendations from the UK partner, we have together selected 15 core skills to be embedded in teaching within participating colleges in Vietnam. Lacking of core skills is really an issue for Vietnamese students as they are unable to meet employers’ requirements. Initial results from the application showed that the businesses sector highly appreciate and welcome students who are updated with the core skills. Through the project, colleges in Vietnam have learned UK approach to develop closer relationship between college, teachers, with students and businesses."
The development of quality assurance system in colleges in Vietnam is part of the British Council global skills and employability programme which runs in more than 30 countries aiming at providing people with opportunities to broaden their horizons and build their future through international education.