Hanoi (VNA) – A webinar on higher education andpostgraduate cooperation between Vietnam and the UK was held on May 27 by theVietnamese Embassy in the UK and the Vietnam-UK Friendship Network (VUFN).
Addressing the event, Vietnamese Ambassador to the UK Nguyen Hoang Long affirmed that educationis one of the top priorities in cooperation between the two countries,stressing that the UK is an important partner of Vietnam in the field.
This is reflected not only in the number of Vietnamese students studying in theUK but also in the number of cooperation projects between universities andcolleges of the two countries, Long said.
The UK currently has more than 40 direct investment projects in educationin Vietnam, he noted, adding that the potential for educational cooperationbetween the two countries is great and needs to be transformed into specificprogrammes and activities.
Vivienne Stern, Director of Universities UK International (UUKi) which represents and promotes Britishuniversities abroad, said that cooperation in education and training betweenVietnam and the UK has yet to match with their potential.
The two countries have many opportunities to develop a long-term, sustainableand high-quality partnership in education, especially as Vietnam is among thefive priority countries in the UK's international education strategy, shestressed.
Stern also pointed out opportunities for universities and companies in Vietnamto collaborate and exchange students with educational institutions in the UKthrough the Turing project,a student exchange programme in which the UK government will sponsor 35,000British students to study abroad.
The latest statistics show that there are 244 British student studying at universities orinterning in businesses in Vietnam.
Meanwhile, about 12,000 Vietnamese students are studyingin the UK, of whom nearly 3,500 Vietnamese students have come to the UK tostudy at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the past year alone.
According to the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training, the UK ranks first in thenumber of international training cooperation programmes in Vietnam with 74trans-national education programmes of 23 British universities./.