New requirements set for foreign investment in education

From August 1, local private kindergartens and schools may link up with lawful and accredited education institutions abroad.

Such is provided in Government Decree 86/2018/ND-CP on foreign cooperation and investment in education, issued early this month.

As stipulated by the Decree, the incorporated education programs must be accredited by authorized authorities in their native countries.

In addition, these programs must conform to the objectives of Vietnam’s education programs and meet the requirements of the foreign partners while refraining from compelling learners to study the same lessons once and again. For the sake of leaners, incorporated programs must also ensure the continuity and transferability among school grades.

Incorporated education programs must be approved by competent agencies, the decree stressed, assigning the Minister of Education and Training to specify the incorporation of Vietnam’s and foreign educational programs.

Regarding the teaching staff, the decree requires domestic and foreign teachers involved in incorporated education programs to provide sufficient evidence of their qualifications.

Specifically, foreign teachers must hold a bachelor’s degree in their chosen subjects and teacher training certificates or equivalent. Meanwhile, Vietnamese teachers are required to meet standard qualifications of the grade they teach.

Besides, all teachers engaged in incorporated education programs must have foreign language proficiency at level 5 in the six-level foreign-language competency framework in accordance with Vietnamese law.

 Another salient point of the new decree is new provisions on establishing a university in Vietnam.

Specifically, any investment project to open a university must have a minimum investment capital of VND 1 trillion, exclusive of the value of the land area on which the institution will be built.

Meanwhile, investment projects to open a branch of foreign-invested universities in Vietnam must have an investment capital of at least VND 250 billion.

In case foreign investors  hire infrastructure facilities or are provided by their Vietnamese partners with available physical facilities to open a university in Vietnam, they must possess an investment capital equal to 70 percent of the above amount.