Bridging Partnership Establishment Needs between the Finnish and Vietnamese HE Institutions: A Case Study of Motivation, Interested Partnering Activities and Challenges of twenty nine Vietnamese Key Universities

Abstract

The era of HE transformation, globalization alongside with internationalization of HE phenomena have given impetus for world-wide HE institutions to transform themselves by means of giving HE internationalization the top priority in their management at all levels. The Finnish and Vietnamese HE institutions have also been influenced under these changes in HE. Both of them have acknowledged the importance of internationalization of their HE systems and implemented strategies to facilitate domestic HE institutions towards dynamic internationalization. While Finland needs to increase their HE attractiveness, Vietnam aims at improving their quality of teaching, learning and doing research within HE institutions to meet up the increasing demand of the burgeoning population. Establishing HE institutional partnerships between Finland and Vietnam is considered the very first starting point of their internationalization process by both parties. This research study aims to bridge the partnership establishment needs between Finnish and Vietnamese HE institutions by investigating the motivations in establishing partnerships with foreign HE institutions, the recognition of the Vietnamese universities towards Finnish HE institutions, the interested partnership activities, the key challenges Vietnamese universities are encountering in establishing institutional partnerships with the latter. Recommendations for both Vietnamese and Finnish HE institutions are also presented. It is hoped that this research may serve as one of very first practical handbooks for Finnish cross border education if the Finnish HE institutions are willing to do so.

Asiasanat: Higher education, partnership establishment, transformational partnership, transactional partnership,internationalization, marketization, privatization, higher education export industry, cross border education, cooperative paradigm, competitive paradigm, return rates of HE, cost-recovery approach