Educational Migration in Vietnam: Challenges and New Opportunities
Along with the general trend in the world, international migration activities of Vietnamese citizens are increasing rapidly with millions of people entering and leaving the country each year and Vietnamese living in more than 100 countries and territories around the globe. Vietnam ranks 8th among the countries with the most international students in the world. In the trend of globalization, to get closer to “world civilization,” studying abroad is the choice of many Vietnamese families. Many parents have grasped the trend of studying abroad to create conditions for their children to come close to the “paradise” education of developed countries. Studying abroad is an opportunity, it opens up a whole new horizon full of hope for changes, promising a better life in the future. The 4th industrial revolution and the strong digital transformation process create the need to fundamentally change the strategy and method of organizing science and technology training and research. Along with the process of integration and internationalization, the tendency of brain drain, especially for highly qualified young cadres, is going to be a big challenge for domestic universities. Besides, the capacity to train high-quality human resources, high-level research capacity, and innovation capacity will be a measure of the universities’ level, and at the same time, a measure of competitiveness for each country. The strongly innovative global economy is creating “brain circulation” or “brain chain” instead of “brain drain,” in which talented people return to their homeland with capital, skills, and knowledge along with many relationships with multinational enterprises as well as technology systems to contribute to the development of the country. The article presents some comments on the educational migration status of Vietnam and proposes some solutions to create favorable conditions for the Vietnamese community abroad to return home and play its role in the country’s development.