Vietnam’s International University and America’s University of Illinois have clinched a memorandum of understanding to boost cooperation in training and student exchanges. Under the deal, Vietnamese students who study in the fields of science and technology at the International University, under the Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City, for the first two years will go to Illinois to complete their final two years of their degree. The cooperation between the two universities is part of a strategy to strengthen and expand its programs with famous universities worldwide and greatly improve the school’s education quality, said International University director Ho Thanh Phong. Founded in 1867, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was ranked 33rd in the world by The Times magazine’s Higher Education World University Rankings in 2010, while the U.S. News and World Report on America’s Best Colleges 2011, ranked the school 15th in the world’s leading public universities. The International University, which opened in 2003, is the first public university in Vietnam to teach in English. The school has 11 bachelor degree courses and nine joint programs with universities from the U.S., the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Thailand. “We are pinning high hope that the school can become one of the top universities in the ASEAN region,” Phong added. (The Saigon Times Daily Mar 25)
