Internationalization as a strategy to enhance higher education quality in Vietnam – reflections from university leaders

Purpose: Internationalization is viewed as an important strategy in the context of a country in transition from central planning to market orientation. Efforts to internationalize universities are being carried out at both national and institutional levels. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there has been no study to investigate how individual institutions approach internationalization and what they gain from that process. This paper aims to investigate the enhancement of teachers’ and students’ knowledge and skills using internationalization in Vietnam universities as a strategy. Design/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews with leaders from 12 universities were conducted to investigate their perceptions, strategies and perceived outcomes of the internationalization process of their universities. Data analysis involved coding the transcripts of interviews into themes. Findings: Results show that current approaches to internationalized activities in Vietnamese universities are ad hoc in nature, while resources and language incompetence of staff and students are limited. In line with other previous studies, limited resources and lack of English competence among educators and students were found to be the key obstacles and challenges for internationalized activities. The authors also note an issue that apparently has not been raised elsewhere in the relevant research literature, which is the challenge for the sustainability of knowledge production via research and publications. Originality/value: Findings from this study not only contribute to Vietnamese universities but also to other developing institutions which do not have strong international exchange programs or have not experienced strong benefits from international exchange programs.