VEF Chairman: new ideas can start in Vietnam
| 16:41' 20/06/2007 (GMT+7) | ||
Establishing and developing high-quality universities is a topic that is currently receiving much attention in Vietnam. As a former manager of a prestigious university in the US, do you have any suggestions? You can learn from the experiences of American universities, or some young universities in Germany, for instance, the University of Bremen. In order to succeed quickly, a university needs to be established from scratch. I’m saying this based on the experiences of the University of Bremen, and in the near future, a new university in Pyongyang. There are many ways to speed up Vietnam’s education system. From my experiences of the past 50 years, I think in order to develop an economy and a country, we should invest in education. This is a fundamental thing that pushes up living standards. In Vietnam, the subject of high-quality universities, which is often referred to as international-standard universities, was discussed as early as after former PM Phan Van Khai’s visit to the US in 2005. Yet, the ideas around this topic are now still somewhere on paper only. In your opinion, in order to have such universities, what is it that we should “kick-start”? I think Vietnam has done the warm-up phase well. You’ve sent your outstanding students to developed countries to study sciences and technology. The Vietnamese Government has developed plans to send from 3,000 to 5,000 students for post-graduate studies abroad within the next 10 to 20 years. Some of these will be supported by the Vietnam Education Fund VEF, and some will receive financial support from different sources. In the meeting with the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) held on the morning of June 14, we made an analogy, saying that you should consider each young student you send abroad an oil well. Establishing good universities was likened to building a filtering system. In order to have profits from oil, not only will we exploit these wells but we’ll also need to build a good system linking them to our filtering one. Each outstanding student after he or she returns home will be more valuable than an oil well. And to take advantage of and develop this resource, we must build not only good schools but also a good education system. There is a famous sentence from Ho Chi Minh which I like a lot. He said, “Plant a tree for the sake of 10 years of interests. Plant a human being for the sake of 100 hundred years of interests.” I hang this sentence in my office at Rice University. Many visitors coming to the office have been impressed by it. If this sentence was hung in every house and government office, it would be wonderful. What is the particular development direction in your model of good universities? Perhaps one should invest more in research. Up until now, Vietnam has been following the German and French models of research and teaching. According to these models, universities focus on teaching and research institutes concentrate on research. There are dozens of reasons to show that this lack of interconnection is no longer suitable to the 21st century. Good teaching depends on research and vice versa. In science and technology, good research depends much on excellent graduates who can only be found at universities. You will meet Vietnam’s PM to discuss the two countries’ education relationship after your meeting with the MoET. What do you want to say at this meeting? I can’t talk about solutions. But rather, it is you who should affirm what it is that you want and need. You determine for yourselves your own priorities and we’ll support you. It’s because we come here to help you achieve what you want rather than offer answers to all of the problems you’re facing. If you are consulted on setting priorities for higher education in Vietnam, what will you propose? The first thing is to ensure good teaching and research at universities. And this depends on human resources. Higher education, I think, won’t need just one but several international-standard schools to solve problems and invent new scientific and artistic ideas right here in your own country. In the future, the world will have 3 types of nations: smart countries, smarter countries and the smartest countries. The differences between them will depend on the way each country invests in education, especially higher education. Those countries with universities that can adjust to our rapid technological development will be the smartest. You can see that in the US, the greatest ideas are created inside universities. The important element that brings about success for a university is emphasising the dominance of ideas. Do you want all of these new ideas to come from Tokyo, London, or Beijing? Or do you want at least some of them to come from Vietnam? I’ve been in Vietnam twice and observed that your country has undergone many changes. Your country is very big and every invention can start right here. I’m going to Pyongyang to work on the new university project there. In Chile and Mexico, they are also establishing “outstanding centres”. If Pyongyang and Chile and Mexico can do things, why can’t such an active country as Vietnam? More importantly, if the Government is really determined, Vietnamese communities abroad will be willing to contribute. But I have to say that establishing good universities is like gardening in Japan. It is a very beautiful and minute task but it will never end. Thus, our efforts must be constant. Viet nam Net |
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