Vietnam will join the Asia-Pacific Convention on the Recognition of Higher Education Qualifications.

Currently, Vietnam is one of the countries supported by UNESCO to raise awareness and capacity to soon ratify and implement the recognition of higher education degrees in the Asia-Pacific region (Tokyo Convention 2011).

Nowadays, in all countries around the world, learners have many opportunities to study, proactively choose the study program and learning method that best suits them. That is also the content ofSustainable Development Goal 4(Sustainable Development Goal four – SDG4) for Education 2030 was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015.

The diversity of learning methods, differences between higher education systems, national qualifications frameworks and education quality assurance frameworks in different countries have led to many challenges and difficulties in recognizing the equivalence of higher education degrees and academics between countries.

Every year, there are nearly 4,000 applications for recognition of university degrees and many official dispatches from agencies and organizations asking about recognition of foreign degrees. (Photo: illustration)

According to statistics from the Ministry of Education and Training, there are about 130,000 Vietnamese citizens studying abroad (October 2016 data). From 2000 to October 2016, there were 485 joint training programs between Vietnamese higher education institutions and foreign higher education institutions that have been and are being implemented (96.7% of the number of joint training programs awarding foreign degrees).

In addition, the strong development of information and communication technology, the explosion of the 4.0 industrial revolution has rapidly increased the number of cross-border education service providers, especially online education. Therefore, the number of degrees granted by foreign educational institutions to Vietnamese people is currently very large and continues to increase sharply.

According to the Department of Testing and Quality Assurance of Education (Ministry of Education and Training), in recent years, there have been nearly 4,000 applications for recognition of university degrees and many official dispatches from agencies and organizations asking about the recognition of foreign degrees. This shows that the need to recognize degrees granted by foreign universities is increasingly receiving attention from society.

As a pioneering organization, UNESCO is currently acting as a focal point to support 06 regions in the world to issue Conventions on the recognition of higher education degrees in each region and hopes to soon move towards a global Convention on the recognition of higher education degrees, in order to promote the recognition of academic and higher education degrees among countries.

Vietnam signed the Bangkok Convention for the Recognition of Higher Education Qualifications in Asia and the Pacific (Bangkok Convention 1983) in December 1983 but has not yet signed, ratified and implemented the revised Tokyo Convention 2011 (Tokyo Convention 2011). Currently, Vietnam is one of the countries receiving support from UNESCO to raise awareness and capacity to soon ratify and implement the Tokyo Convention 2011.

With the support of UNESCO Asia-Pacific experts and the Vietnam National Commission for UNESCO, on March 28, the Ministry of Education and Training will organize a national workshop on recognizing university degrees in Hanoi.

At the workshop, international experts on higher education in the Asia-Pacific region will exchange and share experiences on recognizing higher education degrees with representatives of the Vietnam National Commission for UNESCO, the UNESCO Office in Hanoi, higher education institutions, education quality assessment organizations and a number of departments of home affairs, departments of education and training, etc.

This is an opportunity for Vietnam to soon develop a plan to ratify and implement the Tokyo Convention 2011. At the same time, it helps Vietnam strengthen international cooperation, raise awareness of the recognition of higher education degrees, and the close relationship between degree recognition, quality assurance and the National Qualifications Framework.

According to Dantri