Vietnam expects to boost the bilateral educational cooperation with U.S. universities in the future, including George Mason University, said President Nguyen Minh Triet at the meeting with the university’s Provost Peter N. Stearns in Hanoi on Nov 24.
“Vietnam considers education and training a top priority for national policy and a key to its future in terms of development,” the state leader stressed.
In response, Stearns told his host that George Mason pays careful attention to applied research, dedicating up to $150 million to support student projects in this field.
“We and the Saigon Institute of Technology (SaigonTech) are working on a plan to set up an international university in Vietnam and in the future we wants to foster cooperation in and sharing of tertiary education research with institutes and universities in the communist nation,” the provost added.
As a young university, George Mason currently accommodates over 32,000 students from 130 countries and territories, many of whom are Vietnamese and Americans of Vietnamese. Vietnam has around 13,000 students in the U.S. in the 2008-2009 academic year, ranking the ninth among ten countries and territories having most students in the country.
