There are expected to be 30 key universities in Vietnam.

The above information is mentioned in the draft planning of the network of higher education and pedagogical institutions for the 2021-2030 period, with a vision to 2050 (except for schools under the Ministry of Public Security, National Defense, and pedagogical colleges), chaired by the Ministry of Education and Training.

Accordingly, the ministry expects that by 2030, the country will have about 250 higher education institutions and 50 branches. Of these, there will be 30 key training institutions (including 5 national universities, 5 regional universities, and 18-20 key industry schools).

Specifically, in addition to the two National Universities of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Hue University, and Da Nang University are expected to become national universities by 2030. These training institutions will have higher autonomy than the remaining models, with a leading mission and a core role in implementing the national strategic tasks of developing talents, high-quality human resources, science, technology and innovation.

Therefore, these universities must have the capacity, prestige and quality to be the top in the country in science, engineering, technology and a number of other key fields and industries of the country. The goal is for national universities to be among the top in Asia, with at least 20 fields in the top 1,000 of prestigious international rankings.

Scale and key areas of 5 national universities (expected):

Regarding key universities in each sector, the ministry said there will be 1-2 schools in each sector, with a total of about 18-20. These schools will focus on improving quality, increasing the scale of postgraduate training associated with developing research and innovation. From there, at least 20 fields will be present in prestigious international rankings.

18 national key universities, as proposed by the Ministry of Education and Training:

Four schools are planned as regional universities., besides Thai Nguyen University, including: Vinh University, Nha Trang, Tay Nguyen, Can Tho.

Regarding teacher training schools, the ministry plans to reorganize them in a streamlined manner, based on capacity and reputation, and the ability to meet the requirements of developing teaching staff in localities, regions and the whole country.

By 2030, the country will have about 50 higher education institutions training teachers at all levels. Of these, 11 schools will play a core role with about 50% of the total scale of teacher training nationwide.

These schools are: Hanoi Pedagogical University, Pedagogical University 2, Ho Chi Minh City Pedagogical University, University of Education (under Hue University, Thai Nguyen University, Da Nang University), University of Education (under Vietnam National University, Hanoi), Vinh University, Quy Nhon University, Tay Nguyen University, Can Tho University.

According to this draft, public universities that do not meet the ministry's standards will be restructured, with investment focused on meeting standards within 3-5 years; merged into other schools; or suspended before 2028 and dissolved before 2030. The same will be done with university branches that do not meet standards.

In the coming period, the Ministry does not advocate establishing new public universities, except in some special cases.

Vietnam planned its university network in 2013. Some of the goals by 2020 are to have 460 higher education institutions (224 universities, 236 colleges), with 2.2 million students. In addition, one training institution is in the world's top 200, about 3% of the total number of students are foreigners.

Currently, the country has about 650 higher education institutions (including 244 universities, the rest are colleges) with 2.1 million students. Of these, 4 schools are in the top 1000 of the two prestigious world university rankings, THE and QS, with the highest ranking being 514. The number of international students in Vietnam is about 45,000, equivalent to more than 2% of the total number of students.

The university network planning to 2030, with a vision to 2050, is identified as the key task of the Ministry of Education and Training this school year. The goal is to consolidate and develop Vietnam's higher education system in a synchronous, modern and coherent manner, creating an open, fair, high-quality system with a reasonable scale and structure. In the long term, this planning will help Vietnam be ranked among the countries with advanced higher education systems in the region.

China is considered a successful model in building key universities. In 1995, the country launched the 211 program, investing in about 100 key national universities. According to some sources, the total amount of money poured into this project from 1996 to 2000 was 2.2 billion USD.

Three years later, the 985 Project was launched with the goal of building world-class Chinese universities. Tsinghua and Peking were the first two schools to join the project for three consecutive years, receiving an investment of more than 1.8 billion yuan a year (about 6,000 billion VND). Currently, nearly 40 schools are on this list.

In 2017, the Chinese Ministry of Education announced the World Class 2.0 program with two goals: developing world-class universities and world-class education.

China now has about 2,700 universities. Of these, 13 are in the top 200 in the world. If we count the top 400, China has 30 representatives. The top two universities, Tsinghua and Peking, are both in the top 20, with Tsinghua closing in on the top 10.