ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the impact of European influence on higher education in Vietnam through three eras – French colonialism, Soviet communism and contemporary globalism. We consider the importance of Paris across all three epochs – as the home of colonial administration, the place in which Ho Chi Minh adopted communism and now as the base for the OECD and UNESCO. We also consider how the influences of Europe competed with earlier historical influences from China and the more recent influences of Anglophone countries, notably the United States, Australia and Britain. We provide two contemporary examples of the ways in which these historical political ties to Europe interact with the growth of trade and mobility in the Asia Pacific region. First, we consider the challenges involved in ways in which the Vietnamese government has treated foreign higher education providers, which have involved small but well-funded governmentto-government relationships with European countries, in contrast to larger-scale operations by Anglophone institutions from Australia, Singapore and India that have been largely funded by students themselves. Second, we consider the challenge facing educators who seek to introduce student-centred approaches to teaching and learning in international programmes in Vietnam, which sees students and teachers grapple with dramatic shifts in the culture of higher education in the global era.
