Hanoi Open University (HOU)

HOU was established in 1993 under the decision of the Prime Minister of Vietnam. It was set up for higher education and training with different forms of training to meet the various learning needs of the society. There are 2 modes of training available in HOU; face-to-face training (10,000 students) and distance training (20,000 students throughout the country).

The university offers 8 academic faculties; Economics and Business Administration, Foreign Languages, Information Technology, Tourism, Design, Law, Bio and Electronics. There are a total of 8 campuses for the 8 faculties. The campus which we visited was for the faculty of economics and business administration.

Economic and accounting students are compulsory to learn English. There are 30 credits for English and 10 credits for English for special purpose (ESP). ESP certificate is very useful in helping the students to apply a job.


The university does not offer its students any overseas attachment however there are students from neighbouring countries like Laos who come to the school and study. And HOU has established cooperation with universities/institutes from Thailand, China, Malaysia, etc. They have cooperation activities which are in the form of exchanges of academic information and materials, staff and students, joint research projects, conferences, seminars and training programs.



The university has facilities like computer labs and library for the students to use. However, I feel that those are quite insufficient as I think that university students should have more facilities. The faculties that HOU offers are very specialized, so I think that the school should provide more “in-dept facilities” in each of the faculty. For example, in the faculty of law, the school can probably built an “in-house court” for the students to practice and have a rough idea of what the actual court session is like. And in the faculty of bio, the school should have a lab for them to do their practical stuffs.



I have also noticed that the students there are very enthusiastic and are very interested about the things in Singapore & the education system. Most of them aren’t shy about asking us questions and I think that it is good as they are able to learn and know more by asking questions. And I think that most of them are very talented and intelligent. Given a good education system in Vietnam, a lot of them will outperform many of us.



Currently, education is very important in Vietnam. I have learnt that the rich Vietnamese are willing to spend on their children’s education more than anything else. And the companies in Vietnam are also looking towards a more ‘educated workforce’ whereby they mostly hire a university graduate who is able to speak English. That is the reason why schools in Vietnam like HOU are enforcing rules for the students to speak English. I think that the education industry is a very prospective industry to go into now.