To accelerate national development, the Vietnamese government has set up a goal to invest in education as a priority. Education Project 322 was implemented for that purpose. This dissertation aims to evaluate the Vietnamese foreign training education policy via Project 322.The dissertation is concerned with major evaluation indices set by the Vietnamese government for Project 322, namely (1) supplementing lecturers’ quantity to ensure rapid development of Vietnam’s higher education, (2) improving lecturers’ quality in line with international standards, and (3) training human resources for key industries that are beyond the country’s training capacity. The dissertation is also concerned with investment efficiency and goal efficacy from the project.
The study employed a qualitative approach with two main sources of data: in-depth interviews with the project participants and secondary data related to the project from the Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training (MOET). Both data were analyzed in terms of the goal-reaching efficacy and cost-benefit efficiency of the project via the qualitative analysis software NVivo. MOET’s data show that Project 322 has exceeded the training target with a budget lower than initially expected. Almost half of the scholarship recipients have been trained in science and technology fields that Vietnam still falls short in terms of training capacity. The analyses of the interview data show that the professional knowledge obtained from abroad generates strong dynamics on education in Vietnam. The findings affirm that Project 322 has reached its original goal of training scientific and technical cadres to promote national industrialization and modernization for Vietnam. However, the study also finds the drawbacks during the implementation of the project such as the cumbersome administrative procedures, the unreasonable placement of post-trained talents and the lacking transparency in certain aspects.
