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Vietnam, other nations look to U.S.-style community colleges

By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY

RACH GIA, Vietnam - The words of a song about Kien Giang Community
College
here say it was created to meet "the pressing expectations of the
motherland." But school founder Do Quoc Trung, who co-wrote the song,
says
he wants his students to know college can enrich them, too.

Founded in 2002, it is one of 15 created since 2000 in Vietnam, and is
modeled in part on U.S. community colleges, where the concept was born
in
1901, when Joliet (Ill.) Junior College was founded. And just as
President
Obama is counting on community colleges to prepare the USA's workforce
for 21st
century jobs, Trung and his counterparts here believe their fledgling
schools have potential to
play a lead role as Vietnam pursues its goal to join the ranks of
industrialized countries by 2020.

Other countries, too, are tapping into U.S. community college expertise
as
they diversify their higher education systems. In April, China's
Ministry of
Education sent a delegation to the American Association of Community
College
convention in Phoenix, and a second group plans to visit in November.
The
first of several community colleges developed by the Republic of Georgia
opened last year, with assistance from community colleges in Illinois,
Iowa
and Wisconsin. Qatar's government is working with two U.S. community
college
presidents as it looks into offering associate degrees and a transfer
option
to four-year universities.

Such schools are not a new phenomenon beyond U.S. borders, says Rosalind
Latiner Raby, director of the nonprofit group California Colleges for
International Education. But changes in the economy have heightened
interest
worldwide in harnessing their potential. "What we're now seeing is an
explosion that's been decades in the making," she says. "Most countries
now
either have or are developing plans for a community college-like
institution."

Community colleges in Vietnam - or any country - are not carbon copies
of
the U.S. version. Iran and Mexico, for example, have borrowed heavily
from
France. Vietnam also has partnered with Canada and the Netherlands. And
each
system is shaped by its country's governance policies.

What binds such institutions is a common philosophy, Raby and other
researchers have concluded: Whereas universities cater to an elite few,
community colleges strive to address multiple needs of the public they
serve, from nontraditional students to employers to low-income students
just
out of high school.

"We bring opportunity to the community," Trung says.

They appear to be having an impact. Since Kien Giang Community College
was
founded, the number of educated workers in the province's labor pool has
jumped from 8.5% to 15% last year. Though the community college can't
take
sole credit for that, enrollments more than doubled, from 3,164 to about
6,500 in that period. It is 6,600 this year.

Like U.S. colleges, academic offerings such as accounting, finance and
informational technology are standard fare. Kien Giang also has
capitalized
on the province's rich natural resources. As resorts attract more
foreigners
to Phu Quoc Island, a short ferry ride from Rach Gia, the school has
been
ramping up a tourism program. It launched a seafood technology program
two
years ago to help local fisheries meet export standards.

"We have a variety of food products but (the processing field is) not
very
developed," says Kien Giang food technology major Pham Thi Mong, 20 who
hopes to go on to earn a bachelor's.

Many students aspire to begin their studies at a university - a
bachelor's
degree is held in high esteem - yet the odds of doing so are not in
their
favor. Just 16% of university age students in Vietnam were enrolled in
higher education in 2005 (vs. 43% in Thailand that year, 17%-19% in
China
and Indonesia), says a Harvard report out last year.

Though that percentage is increasing, those precious few slots go only
to
those scoring highest on a national exam. The Vietnamese government,
acknowledging that its higher education system needs an overhaul,
encourages
more affluent families to send their children abroad, or to one of the
private universities sprouting here under agreements with other
countries,
including Australia, Germany, and the USA.

Affordability is a growing concern, too. Undergraduate tuition at a
four-year public university is only slightly higher than it is for an
associate's degree, but prices could increase this fall - to about $135
and
$110, per academic year, respectively. But for students in Kien Giang
Province, where the average household annual income is about $456, costs
related to travel, housing and other expenses quickly add up. The
nearest
major universities is in Can Tho, a three hour drive from Rach Gia. And
for
some families, that's too far for comfort.

"My parents ... do not want me to learn far from home. My home is near
my
school, it is very convenient for me," says English major Duong Thi My
Hang,
21, who is pursuing a bachelor's degree through a satellite program at
Kien
Giang Community College. Added benefits she says, include the college's
computer labs (acquired as part of a partnership with the India-based
National Institute of Information Technologies) and its foreign
teachers,
who come mostly through a U.S. program called Princeton-in-Asia, a
nonprofit
founded in 1898 that sends college graduates to serve communities
throughout
Asia.

*Still an 'experiment' *

Yet for all their promise, the future of community colleges here remains
uncertain. The most concrete roadblock: They must be granted permanent
status from the government's Ministry of Education and Training. And it
still views the schools as experimental.

One problem is that the concept is not fully understood by the public or
some key decision-makers, says Mai Van Tinh, the Ministry of Education
and
Training official in charge of community colleges. Some provinces, for
example, have tried to merge community colleges with long-established
public
professional schools that typically focus on a single discipline, such
as
teaching or medicine. That model reflects the "sluggish, stagnant and
bureaucratic thinking ... of the old command centralized planning
market,"
Tinh says. Local leaders "did not understand that the North American
model
of community college is very dynamic and flexible in a market economy."

Tinh's interviews last year also found some provincial leaders who said
they
would rather have a four-year university.

In fact, three of Vietnam's 15 community colleges have been upgraded to
university status. And Diane Oliver, an education professor at
California
State University-Fresno and lead author of a chapter on Vietnam in
*Community
College Models: Globalization and Higher Education Reform*, published in
March and co-edited by Raby, worries that other schools may want to do
the
same - if only to ensure their continued existence. "Without a permanent
regulation they're always in a little bit of jeopardy," she says.

The preference for university status reflects the biggest perceptual
challenge for community colleges: lack of prestige - an issue not
unfamiliar
in the USA.

"Overcoming the stigma that they are perceived as 'lesser' institutions
in
terms of quality of education is a major hurdle" for Vietnam's community
colleges, says Michael Michalak, U.S. ambassador to Vietnam. The State
Department has helped support a number of initiatives here with U.S.
community colleges.

The American Association of Community Colleges is working with its
Vietnam
counterpart to develop quality-assurance guidelines. And Trung, who
hosted
three U.S.-Vietnamese conferences during his tenure at Kien Giang,
developed
an especially close relationship with Mohawk Valley Community College in
Utica, N.Y., one of four U.S. institutions to help his campus develop
its
information technology program.

Benefits go both ways. "U.S. companies doing business in Vietnam (need)
a
skilled workforce to function productively," Michalak says, and U.S.
partnerships lend credibility to Vietnam's programs.

Tinh agrees. "I hope that in the near future, together with assistance
and
cooperation from U.S. community colleges, we will promote the pilot
program
... to the more permanent status," he says.

And Trung, who has been reassigned to a university starting this fall,
hopes
he is right.

"The country needs all levels (of training), from vocational to higher
education," Trung says. But "the urgent aims of education are to bring
training to the community and to provide opportunities for everybody."

Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-09-23-vietnam-community-coll
ege_N.htm

AAP Newsfeed
September 16, 2009 Wednesday 6:17 PM AEST
Vic: First US ambassador to Hanoi becomes Australian citizen

*BYLINE:* Edwina Scott
*DATELINE:* MELBOURNE Sept 16

It was a fitting place to become an Australian. Outside the 25th
floor
of a central Melbourne office, yachts sailed by on Port Phillip Bay, the
hallowed turf of the MCG gleamed, and to the north beckoned the bush of
the
Dandenong Ranges.

At 74, Douglas 'Pete' Peterson, resplendent in charcoal suit and
koala-print tie, stood proudly alongside wife Vi Le on the eve of
Australian
Citizenship Day. Mr Peterson's military career as a fighter pilot in
the
US Air Force took him on missions to Vietnam. He was shot down over
North
Vietnam in September 1966, ejected and landed in a tree. Stripped of
almost all his clothes and multiple broken bones, he was captured and
sent
to Hoa Lo prison, also known as the "Hanoi Hilton", where he remained in
horrific conditions as a prisoner-of-war for six-and-a-half years.
Apart
from occasional flashbacks, he eventually overcame the physical and
emotional trauma to later hold office as a Democrat congressman from
1991-97, until he accepted then president Bill Clinton's offer to become
the
first US Ambassador to Vietnam.

There as a political appointee, he helped broker the USA-Vietnam Trade
Agreement, by bringing the US administration on board to mend rifts
between the two nations and support the opening of Vietnam to the world.
"Having been a POW, the Vietnamese saw me at my very worst and I saw
them at their very worst, and so we had this almost bond of
knowing one another," Mr Peterson told reporters on Wednesday. "As a
result, there were efforts made to make sure that we were on the road to
reconciliation instead of putting up roadblocks. "I think you can look
at
history now and see that the two countries are very good friends, good
allies and that's even going to get better." It was in the first weeks
of
his appointment as ambassador that Mr Peterson met his wife Vi Le, a
Vietnamese-Australian member of the Australian embassy. The decision
to
live in Australia became "a natural choice" to be closer to Vi's family,
and
for commercial reasons, as much of the couple's consultancy business and
children's charity is based in Asia.

At the conclusion of the short ceremony, Mr Peterson was handed a wattle
plant, certificate of citizenship and a showbag containing items
including an Australian picture book, a poster of the citizenship pledge
and a flag. Mr Peterson was exempt from sitting the immigration
citizenship test as he is over 60 years of age but
is aware of the need to choose an AFL team as soon as possible. "I
need to
look at the rule book first, and see what they're doing out there," he
joked. More than 4,500 people from 120 countries are expected to
become
Australian citizens on Thursday as part of the annual Citizenship Day
celebrations marked since 2001.

The Daily Telegraph (London)
September 12, 2009 Saturday

Sam Llewellyn

The plane crawls high above the Mekong delta - flooded paddy, intestinal
loops of river, roads crammed with Honda 50s and lined with shops selling
rice and Marlboros. Then suddenly there is sea, muddy at first, then a
cheerful turquoise. The propellers change pitch. The nose drops. A green
mountain flicks past the wing, then a white beach. We bank steeply, lining
up with a runway on which two people seem to be riding bicycles. And down
slams the plane on the pockmarked concrete of Duong Dong airport, gateway to
the Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc.

Outside the terminal a little group of drivers are whisking red dust off
Japanese four-wheel-drive taxis. In Duong Dong high street, our driver
carefully skirts a cow and calf, who regard us with soulful Jersey eyes.
"Manchester United,'' says the driver, using the universal language of
south-east Asia. He grins. His English gives out. So does the tarmac. Towing
a lofty plume of red dust, we pass a memorial bearing a star and the
likeness of Uncle Ho, and jounce into the interior.

Phu Quoc is the biggest island in Vietnam. It sits in the Gulf of Thailand,
minding its own business. Until recently, this consisted of the manufacture
of a world-beating nuoc mam fish sauce, the cultivation of black and white
pepper, and the maintenance of a nature reserve occupying most of the
northern part of the island. The fish sauce is so pungent that Vietnamese
Airlines is reputed to have installed special sniffers to prevent passengers
taking it in their luggage and endangering the purity of the baggage hold;
the pepper is undeniably delicious, growing in palm-shaded vineyards in the
sandy interior. During the Vietnam War, a camp on its east coast held 40,000
North Vietnamese prisoners, but little trace now remains. As Ho Chi Minh's
tanks drove into Saigon and Americans scrambled into choppers on the Embassy
roof, the population of Phu Quoc got on with its farming and fishing.

The island's northern extremity lies less than 10 miles from Cambodia, and
in 1975 it was briefly invaded by the Khmer Rouge. Soon after the Khmer
Rouge had been chased away, backpackers started to arrive. A few hoteliers
followed. The four turboprop flights a week became four 64-seater turboprop
flights a day. And there they seem to have stuck, for the moment. "We are
roughly where Phuket was 25 years ago,'' said one of the co-proprietors of
the Mango Bay Resort, leaning back in his armchair as the sun plunged into
the sea.

Phu Quoc now has many hotels, mostly of the beach-bungalow type. Most are
concentrated on Long Beach, a 12-mile strip of white sand running south from
Duong Dong. Those closest to the town back onto a dusty dual carriageway
studded with melancholy hawkers' stalls selling cans of green tea and the
aptly-named Harpoon Gin. A safer distance down the beach is La Veranda, an
elegant air-conditioned establishment with a swimming pool, cooled towels
and sorbets delivered to sunloungers at noon. La Veranda is the poshest spot
on the island and appeals to colonial nostalgics with deep pockets. A
charming hotel at the opposite extreme is the Bo Resort, on Ong Lang beach
well to the north of Duong Dong. Bo is a group of cottages dotted around a
beautiful garden on a headland with splendid views over wild sea and empty
shore, and knock-down prices.

Somewhere between la Veranda and Bo in both style and location lies Mango
Bay. This is an eco-friendly straggle of elegant cottages with verandas,
sprawled along three quarters of a mile of wooded coast. More than half the
Mango Bay's guests do not leave the resort, and as you lie in the warm,
glass-clear water watching a squid boat on the horizon, it is easy to see
their point. The restaurant is simple and excellent, the cocktails cheap and
powerful, the massages deeply relaxing. One of the three owners has started
a butterfly breeding programme and a propagation scheme for endangered
orchids that grow wild in Phu Quoc's jungly interior. The cottages are not
air-conditioned, but they are made cool and airy by the sea breeze. We lay
in the gauzy cloud of our mosquito-netted four-poster, breeze wafting in at
the linen-curtained windows of the hardwood bungalow, watching a fat lizard
patrolling the bamboo ceiling for stray mosquitoes. The only sounds were the
brush of waves on the beach, the distant thud of a fishing boat engine and
the hoot of an animal in the far wooded distance. It might have been one of
Phu Quoc's resident gibbons. Whatever it was, it was calling us forth to
look at the world beyond Mango Bay.

There are rumours (unsubstantiated by recent sightings) that Phu Quoc is one
of the few places in the world where dugongs still live. I asked the French
hotel manager. "Dugong? Non,'' he said. "They keep very much to the deep
forests of the nature reserve.'' Suppressing a well-founded suspicion that
the dugong is a marine mammal, I asked how we could visit the nature
reserve. "You cannot,'' said the Frenchman, with powerful Gallic finality.
"It is for nature, not people.''

This was a good point, and unanswerable. So we rented a Honda 50 from one of
the Mango Bay's gardeners and set off into a land without tourists.

Red dust rose behind us. Peppercorns wafted spice from the roadside, where
they lay drying on blue tarpaulins watched over by Buddhist shrines. The
road narrowed to a five-foot path. It wound behind the beach, threaded
fishing villages studded with reeking piles of anchovies, crossed causeways
through mangrove swamps, passed mile after mile of empty beaches. Farmers
had limed their mango orchards with shell-sand. Fish pens the size of
kitchen gardens lined the sides of creeks. A watchtower stood in the forest,
flying the red flag of the People's Republic, the guard keeping an eye on
things from a hammock strategically slung in the gun emplacement. We paused
to let two wild bulls fight it out in the middle of the road. A
feathery-trousered eagle sailed out of the clouds on the mountains and sat
gigantic in a tree, regarding us with a fierce yellow eye.

In the early afternoon we arrived at Cape Ganh Dhau, the island's
northwesternmost corner. Howling and clanging emanated from a rickety
building overhanging the beach. This turned out to be the proprietor of the
local restaurant, a noted poet and electric guitarist. He laid down his
guitar to show us to a table on the shaky terrace. Five miles across the
sea, the first islands of Cambodia loomed out of their thundercloud. This is
smuggling country. Some of the islands in these seas are no-go areas, full
of drugs and guns, gangsters and brothels. Another is one of at least six
islands on which Captain Kidd is said to have buried his treasure. Lunch
arrived.

This consisted of a saucepan of boiling broth on its own gas stove, and
slabs of raw fish to cook in it. After a mighty repast of squid and sea
snails I waddled onto the beach. Small boys were walking past, eating white
berries off sprigs of greenery. A polite child gave me a handful to try;
they tasted a little like myrtle. At this point the restaurateur picked up
his radio mike and launched into a poem for the benefit of our five fellow
lunchers. They clapped politely when he had finished. "What was that?'' I
said to the slightly bilingual waitress.

"Hymn to Sea Insect,'' said the girl, watching apprehensively as her boss
headed for his guitar.

We drove back to Mango Bay and soaked off the road dust in the warm sea,
watching a remora trying to attach itself to a bather until it was time for
cocktails at sunset. It had been a day fraught with interest.

Naturally, there are plans to make Phu Quoc even more interesting by
bringing in mass tourism. A government minister appeared recently and
inaugurated the building of a new international airport capable of
accommodating full-sized airliners. Completion is promised for 2012. "Which
means 2015,'' said an Australian in the bar. "If at all.'' Before the world
financial system caught flu, tourism entrepreneurs had parcelled up the
island into lots and erected billboards showing vast developments with
canals, marinas and thousands of villas. These schemes are now in abeyance,
but they may return. Phu Quoc is one of the world's great islands. Go now,
while the going is good.

PASSPORT TO PHU QUOC

Between October and April. May and June can be ferociously hot. In July,
August and September there is a slim chance of good weather (and a high
chance of cut rates in hotels) - but torrential rains turn the roads to red
slime and the sea to soup.

How to get there

Vietnam Airlines (www.vietnamairlines.com) flies from Ho Chi Minh City and
Rach Gia; the fare from Ho Chi Minh to Phu Quoc currently costs pounds 165
return. It is wise to get return tickets, as the small number of daily
flights makes it possible to get stuck on the island.

Singapore Airlines (www.singaporeair.com) offers London to Ho Chi Minh for
pounds 515 return inc tax from March 3 to April 3. Less frequent ferries are
also available from Rach Gia (six hours, daily) and Ha Tien (four hours,
every other day). Both these mainland ports can be problematic of access.

Where to stay

Mango Bay (www.mangobayphuquoc.com): rates range from about $60 ( pounds 36)
per night for a bungalow, $100 per night for airy plantation bungalows
(sleep two) and $210 for the two-family-sized Reef House. Breakfast
included. Dinner will set you back about $15 a head.

La Veranda (www.laverandaresort.com): an international style resort with
international style prices, starting at $250 a night for a pleasant
air-conditioned room and rising to $400 for abject luxury and an ocean view.
Restaurant prices reflect the general air of international smartness.

Bo Resort (www.boresort.com): charming cold-water cottages from $50-$84 per
night (breakfast not included) and restaurant meals $10-$15 per head.

Prices vary depending on the season, the occupancy levels and in some cases
the whim of the owner. It is worth haggling.

Hotels run boat trips to islands for snorkelling and picnics. Dive schools
operate out of Duong Dong. Windsurfer and jeep hire are available through
hotels (though the most interesting roads on the island are too narrow for
four-wheeled vehicles).

Where to eat

Seafood is excellent. Eat in Duong Dong market or with hawkers, using mime,
for about $1.50 a meal. Western-style cafés in Duong Dong. Fine dining at La
Veranda and good simple restaurants at Bo and Mango Bay.

HOUSTON August 31, 2009 (AP)

The Associated Press

An exhibition of Vietnamese art, with more than 100 objects never before
seen in the U.S., will premiere at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston
Sept.
13. It will remain on view through Jan. 3.

The show, called "Arts of Ancient Viet Nam: From River Plain to Open
Sea,"
includes major loans from Vietnam's leading museums, including objects
from
the first millennium B.C. through the 17th century that have never
before
left the country.

The museum describes the show as the first "exhibition in the U.S. to
address the historical, geographic, and cultural contexts of
pre-colonial
Vietnamese art in depth."

The show looks at Vietnam's history as a crossroads for travel and trade
in
Southeast Asia and beyond. Artifacts include ritual bronzes, fine gold
jewelry, terra cotta burial wares, Hindu and Buddhist sculptures, and
ornaments made of gold, lapis lazuli and crystal.

The exhibit was co-organized by The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and
Asia
Society in New York, which worked with nine museums in Vietnam and the
Ministry of Culture. The show will travel to New York next year and be
on
view at Asia Society Feb. 2-May 2, 2010.

---

Vietnam to be severely affected by El Nino

*The National Hydro-Meteorological Service of Vietnam announced that
over
the next three months, Vietnam will be severely affected by El Nino.*

Temperatures in most areas across the country will be higher than
normal.
The average temperature this autumn will average 0.5-1.5 degrees Celsius
higher to reach 26-28 degrees Celsius, while central Vietnam and the
southern province of Long An will experience below average temperature.

Average rainfall in August has only reached some 150 to 200mm, 30-70
percent
lower than in recent years.