Thursday, September 24, 2009
KGCC
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
