Impacts of Globalization on Professional Development of Lecturers in Higher Education
The Case study in School of Education in Can Tho University, Viet Nam
HO THI THU HO*
Abstract
Globalization has effected on the quality of higher education in different sides in Viet Nam. This process
has developed gradually after 1986 when the “Doi Moi” policy happened in Viet Nam. Located in the
central of the Mekong Delta of Viet Nam, Can Tho University (CTU) is one of the places that gets a lot of
positive impacts from globalization through international collaboration. One of these impacts is the
improvement on professional development of lecturers in teaching and researching such as 1/ the
improvement of knowledge, thank to international training and studying; 2/ the improvement of teaching
methods basing on educational innovation; 3/the improvement of research competence in the international
learning community. Thank to that, the quality of teaching and researching of lecturers at our university
has been improved more and more. This paper will display these three improvements in the case study in
School of Education (SoE) at CTU and clarify how globalization through international collaboration has
effected on professional development of lecturers in teaching and researching at higher education with the
core discussion on the implementing process of these three improvements.
1. INTRODUCTION
Globalization is “a comprehensive term for the emergence of a global society in which
economic, political, environmental, and cultural events in one part of the world quickly come to
have significance for people in other parts of the world. Globalization is the result of advances in
communication, transportation, and information technologies. It describes the growing
economic, political, technological, and cultural linkages that connect individuals, communities,
businesses, and governments around the world” (Tabb, William K., 2008).
Globalization in Vietnam has gradually come since the ‘Doi Moi’ policy began in 1986. The
year 1986 is the important landmark in history when the Vietnamese Party and Government
implemented comprehensive reformation of socio-economic policies and changed from “the
centrally planned economy” to “socialist-oriented market economy”. That is the process of
economic renovation for effective integration into economic globalization and knowledge-based
economy. After “Doi Moi” 1986, Vietnam has gradually been among the most successful East
Asian economies (Philip Abbott and Finn Tarp, 2011). The process of globalization, after 1986,
has influenced on Vietnamese development in different aspects such as economy, culture,
environment, education…The Vietnam’s higher education system has also developed rapidly and
recorded a lot of significant achievements in the process of globalization (Nguyen, 2002).
Globalization through international cooperation in Vietnam is considered as a strategy in the
process of reforming the higher education. This process has helped to upgrade and build facilities
and equipment; to reform training objectives, contents and methods; to promote activities of
scientific research in universities. Globalization through international collaboration in Vietnam
has also brought few negative impacts on higher education (Nguyen, 2002). However, this study
mainly focuses on positive impacts of international cooperation on higher education in SoE,
CTU, Vietnam.
Can Tho University (CTU), an important state higher education institution in the Mekong Delta
(MD), is the cultural, scientific and technical center of the MD and Viet Nam. The university has
established scientific and technological cooperation with many international organizations,
universities, and research institutes. As a result of these cooperative projects, the staff’s
administrative capabilities and specializations have been upgraded. The facilities, experimental
equipment, and scientific materials have also been added (Introduction of CTU in CTU website).
School of Education (SoE), housed in CTU, which is committed to constantly improving its
capacity in education, research and community services. The main missions of SoE include: (1)
Training initial primary school and secondary school teachers; (2) Conducting research in the
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fields of educational, natural and social sciences. Since the past years, the SoE has received ongoing support from different education institutions and organizations in Europe, America,
Australia and Asia. This international collaboration has influenced the education and research
through curriculum studies, professional development, and leadership skills (Trinh, 2012). Thank
to this collaboration, the quality of higher education in SoE has been developed more and more.
This paper will discuss about the influence of the international collaboration on Professional
Development of the SoE staff in teaching and researching. “Staff” in this study refers to
“lecturers” and “Professional Development” (PD) here focuses on knowledge, teaching method
and research competence.
2. METHODOLOGY
2.1 Research questions
This study attempted to find out the answers to one main question:
“How has Globalization through International Collaboration Impacted on Professional
Development of Lecturers in SoE, CTU, Vietnam?” This impact will be clarified on the
improvement of:
- knowledge of lecturers thank to international training and studying;
- teaching methods of lecturers basing on educational innovation;
- research competence of lecturers in the international learning community.
2.2 Research instruments
There are three main instruments for the research. They are as follows:
- Collecting and researching data from the procedures, materials regarding to the process of
SoE development in the international collaboration which has influenced on PD of
lecturers from 1996 up to now;
- Interviewing lecturers and leaders who have worked in SoE from 1996 up to now to get
their opinions and views for the impacts of international collaboration on PD of lecturers in
SoE.
- Observing activities that SoE lecturers have participated in learning, teaching and
researching such as “lecturing classrooms”, “field trip activities”, “seminars”,
“workshops”, “conferences”… These observations gave the specific evidences to prove
how lecturers have improved their professional development.
2.3 Methods of data analysis
To answer the research question, data from procedures, observations and interviews were
recorded, transcribed and analyzed with qualitative methods of Strauss and Corbin, 1996 and the
case study theory of Yin Robert K. 1994
3. FINDINGS
3.1 Impact of international collaboration on the improvement of knowledge of lecturers
thank to international training and studying
Thanks to the international cooperation of the projects from European countries, USA, Australia
…, SoE lecturers’ knowledge has been upgraded by “Official training” and “Study in the
international project activities”. These training and studying programs have been developed
since 1996 up to now. After the international collaboration with the first MHO4 project (19962004), SoE has more international projects such as CTU-MSU (2001-2009), LG (2001-2006),
NFP (2006-2007), ALA (2008-2010)…These projects gave a lot of opportunities for SoE staff to
strengthen and improve their knowledge.
Strengthening knowledge from “Official training”: Several projects have sponsored the SoE
candidates to take diplomas, masters or doctors training programs, which are very well
organized. Firstly, trainee candidates are trained English in CTU, even computer using, the way
to live and study in foreign countries, then these candidates will be sent to foreign countries to
study master or doctor degrees in many different subjects in long term projects. Several
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lecturers studied in short training programs to get diplomas. For instance, in MHO4 project since
1996-2004, the total of 2 doctors, 11 masters, and 12 diplomas were trained abroad.Before
1996, there were not more than 10/150 people, at SoE, who had the chance to study in overseas
(Le, 2004). Beside this project, there are many other trans-national partnerships that have
supported many master and doctorate programs in SoE. This support consists of financial
funding, immigration procedures, admission procedures, academic advising, living abroad
conditions and others. . Without such support, it is not easy for SoE lecturers to improve
knowledge and to receive official and valuable master or doctoral degrees in several prestige
universities abroad.
Improving knowledge from “Study in the international project activities”: Lecturers have a
chance to enhance their knowledge through workshops, conferences, visiting (study tour)
abroad and other activities in cooperative working with foreign experts in the international
projects. This will be clarified more in the next sections. The table below shows a number of
lecturers who had the chance to study oversea in short time.
Table 1: Number of persons who received study tours by international projects
Project
Number of person
Duration
Destination country
Main objective of the tour
MHO4
13
3 months
Holland
LG
9
3 weeks
USA
NFP
5
2 weeks
Holland
Learning Coaching model in
Education
ALA
14
2 weeks
Australia
Learning how to Design Teacher
Training Curriculum
Writing lecture notes
Learning Methodology in
Teacher Training
(Source: Interview the SoE former Dean who hold the office in term 2005-2012)
Through these training and studying programs, knowledge of lecturers significantly improved in
both subject knowledge and educational knowledge. Their knowledge is supplemented,
extended, in-depth and practical. Thus, these programs bring good opportunities for lecturers to
update and integrate new knowledge into their different subjects such as English, Math, Physic,
Chemistry, Biology, Geography, Literature, Education…This has great significance, not only for
lecturers, but also for their students at present and in the future.
3.2 Impact of international collaboration on the improvement of teaching methods of
lecturers basing on educational innovation
3.2.1 Process of Educational Innovation from International Projects
Educational innovation has come to SoE since 1996, after the first international project (MHO4
project) began.. Before this time, most lecturer staff of SoE had taught with “Chalk and talk” or
“Teacher-center trend”. SoE lecturers have been improved teaching methods from a lot of
activities in educational innovation through international projects such as MHO4, CTU-MSU,
LG…from many different countries (Le, 2004). The process of teaching reform is not easy! It is
a long and hard working process of both foreign experts and SoE lecturers. The activities in this
process have been conducted from “Learning active teaching” to “Applying theory of active
teaching into teaching courses”, “Observing class teaching and giving feedback”, “Discussing
and drawing lesson learns” then “Presenting the results in the conferences”. These activities of
the projects will be clarified in the following:
MHO4 project, from Holland, since 1996 to 2004, is the first project which brought educational
innovation to SoE.
Learning active teaching through training workshops
This project organized three training workshops for 150 lecturers (all Lecturers) of SoE and 50
high school teachers in the Mekong Delta in three summers in 1996, 1997 and 1998. One
workshop lasted 10 days. Each workshop had general training at the first time, and then specific
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training divided by different groups of subjects: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology,
Geography, History, Literature and Educational Psychology. Each group has its foreign
professional professor of teaching methods to train and support. The main topic in both three
training workshops is "Learning by Discovering" or "Teaching with student-center trend". The
key content of the workshops focused on 5 dimensions of Robert Marzano1: 1/ Positive Attitudes
and Perceptions about Learning; 2/ Acquiring and Integrating knowledge; 3/ Extending and
Refining Knowledge; 4/ Using Knowledge Meaningfully; 5/ Productive Habits of Mind (Le,
2004).
Application in class teaching - observation - giving feedback - discussion lesson learn
After each training workshop, lecturers and school teachers are required to apply what they
studied by teaching practice in class. The Dutch professors and colleagues observed and gave
feedback and discussion later for the class teaching. From such discussion and feedback, groups
of all lecturers and Dutch professor sited together to draw lesson learns mainly about the way of
teaching. They discuss what is the best; what need to be changed; what teachers had learned;
what could be difficult and why so difficult; how to overcome those problems. Through such
activities, teaching skills of teachers and lecturers have changed significantly (Le, 2004).
CTU-MSU project is The Cantho University (CTU)-Michigan State University (MSU), USA
project “Integrating of School Reform with Community Development” began in June 2001 up to
December, 2009. One of the project’s goals is to improve active teaching in participating schools
in rural areas. The project uses a particular approach to active learning, called KUA
(Knowledge-Understanding-Application) (Ho, 2010).
Learning KUA teaching and learning model through training workshops
The project organized the ‘active learning” workshops followed the KUA model. With this
model, American experts trained SoE lecturers and school teachers2 a series workshops which
consisted 7 topics such as Theory of KUA; How to identify the main idea of the lesson; How to
build productive questions; How to organize group work activities; How to use teaching aids;
How to use formative/continuous assessment and How to teach outside classroom (Ho, 2010).
Application in class teaching – observation and giving feedback – discussion lesson learns
After workshops, lecturers and school teachers who teach the same subject will apply KUA
methods in teaching practice. This work was on going weekly with the following activities, such
as discussing lesson plans, micro teaching, discussing and giving comments, and teaching in the
real class for observation and reflection. Each lecturer helped 2-3 school teachers. These SoE
lecturers, after one year working in such activities, could train KUA teaching model to other
lecturers and school teachers in the later workshops of CTU-MSU project. Later, these
workshops were seen making progress more and more.
Participating teachers get on-going support to change “chalk and talk teaching” through weekly
visits from SoE lecturers who observed lessons, provided supportive feedback and reviewed
lesson plans for the coming week. Thank to this work, school teachers’ professional development
was improved more and deeper. One school teacher said: "In the workshop, we really did not
understand much about KUA model, but in practical teaching, through specific and supportive
comments from colleagues and SoE lecturers, we understand KUA teaching method more and
learn a lot of subject knowledge and pedagogic skills" (Ho, 2010).
1
Robert Marzano is one of the best Educators in USA. He researched and published many books which are very
valuable for active teaching and learning
2
These teachers, who teach at schools in Cantho city and Hau Giang province at present, participated in the CTUMSU project and cooperated in working and sharing with SoE lecturers for teaching and learning reform.
4
This is also a golden opportunity for SoE lecturers to improve subject knowledge and practical
experience of teaching methods in the real situations to train their students at SoE, so that these
students can become good teachers in future. SoE lecturers’ professional development, through
the process from training workshop by American professors, then supporting school teachers in
making lesson plans, observing lesson teaching, discussing and giving feedback in many
different lessons to organizing and training KUA methods for new teachers and lecturers in later
workshops, has been upgraded clearly in a steady growth (Ho, 2010).
Presenting lesson learns at the conferences or later workshops
Next, lecturers and school teachers after one semester or one year met to discuss anddrew lesson
learn from practical teaching lessons, then organized later workshops for new teachers and
lecturers even presented or shared what they learned to other colleagues in conferences. This
project, from 2001-2009, organized totally 15 stages of training workshops for more than 20 SoE
lecturers and 200 school teachers in Can Tho City and Hau Giang province. Only the first stage
of training workshop was trained by American experts, the 14 stages of training workshops later
were trained by SoE lecturers and several school teachers who get good experiences in carrying
out process activities. There was one foreign expert who usually got a long to support and share
with lecturers and teachers for any activities of the project (Interview one member of the CTUMSU project management team).
After the project ended in December 2009, there were one research to find how is the KUA
methods influence on teachers’ professional development from September to December 2010.
This research found that teachers who participated in the project have applied active teaching
skillfully, organized cooperative learning, used productive questions, teaching aids, and
formative assessment effectively (Ho, 2010).
The above information shows that this project is significant for teachers and lecturers. Their
professional development has been improved better and better, which proves the sustainable
development of the project.
LG project, from USA since 2001-2006, is the project on “Improvement of Methodology in
Teacher Training at SoE, CTU and School of Education in Michigan State University (MSU)
through Linkage Grant.
Learning active teaching – application – observation – discussion - presentation
Like the above projects, the LG project also trained active teaching methods, then lecturers
applied in their class teaching for observation and discussion. Finally, they presented the results
to other SoE lecturers in conferences or wrote the papers publishing to, The News of LG
project3. The teaching methodology topics that this project had trained consisted of “Skills in
cooperative teaching and learning”; “Using Metaphor in teaching”; “Using productive questions
in teaching”; “Action research”, “Active activities in teaching social science subjects”; “Making
and Using video recording in teaching practice” (Wheeler, 2004). Particularly, each topic was
organized in different time from 2001-2006 with not less than 15 participated lecturers. One
workshop had its own way of training, application, discussion and presentation at the conference.
Each topic finally had its own conference to present and share what lecturers learn from its
activities. Therefore, learning from the above topics in such activities, SoE lecturer staff had a
very good opportunity to improve their professional teaching methodology.
3
From September, 2004 to 2006, there were The News of LG project as the journal of LG. This journal published
one time in 3 months to collect and disseminate what teachers done and learn in LG activities.
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Improvement teaching methods through study tours
Beside training workshops, one remarkable activity of this project is the arrangement for SoE
lecturers coming to MSU to learn in short-term study. There were 4 study trips and each trip had
2-3 lecturers with three weeks study in School of Education in MSU. Totally, there were nine
SoE ones who came to MSU.
What have these people learned at MSU?
One lecturer of Literature is one of nine persons, who came to MSU from this project said: "In
MSU, I observed teaching classes on the subjects of social sciences of MSU lecturers, school
teachers; visited the offices, labs and libraries of MSU, primary and secondary schools. I also
attended workshops and conferences on education in MSU. Beside, I had a chance to look for the
books, documents related to my professional knowledge subjects in MSU library. The LG
projects funded each person in the trip getting several books, which are essential for teacher
training in SOE. I like best that I shared many important issues in professional knowledge with
MSU colleagues...I had a lot of study activities. Finally, I was required to write the report and
present what I have learned from this study trip in the conferences in MSU and SoE or The News
of LG project. All of my studying process was arranged well in advance by the LG project
management team4. There was one supervisor who always supported my study, work, visiting
and living, so I got the most effective learning trip."
Such a study tour helped a lot for professional development in subject knowledge and teaching
methods of lecturers who received that trip. One lecturer shared: "I really opened my eyes to
grow up after such a trip! I had learned so much from the smallest to the largest things in subject
knowledge and teaching skills. For example, I learned the ways that one primary teacher asked
his pupils questions: “Do you love the street near your house? Why yes or why not?" instead of
asking: "What is the role of the street?" Another, I learned how the MSU lecturers organized a
course effectively; How they assessed students’ learning outcomes appropriately... Many other
things I learned in the trip! I could not describe all of them!"
ALA project, from Australia, since 2008-2010, is the international collaboration between SoE,
CTU and Faculty of Education and Social Work (FESW) at Sydney University.
Learning designing teaching curriculum with active teaching through study tour
The ALA project organized one short study tour (2 weeks) to FESW, Sydney University for 14
SoE lecturers in 2008. These lecturers are heads or vice heads of SoE departments or members of
SoE management team. This trip had a number of important study activities with topics below:
- Learning and discussing about “How to design teacher training curriculum according to teaching
standard output?”
- Learning and discussing “How to evaluate students’ learning outcomes effectively and consistent with
teacher training curriculum objectives?”
- Learning and discussing about teaching methodology in higher education: active teaching and learning
in higher education, using new learning technologies in higher education, assessment of students' learning,
how a good teacher should be and how to become a good teacher...
- Learning and discussing about how to get school teaching practice the best in teacher training
curriculum
- Visiting primary and secondary schools in Sydney: classroom teaching, learning and sporting activities
(out side of classroom), activities in school labs, libraries ...
What had the fourteen persons done when they returned SoE?
Returning SoE, these people compiled together teaching standard for SoE teacher training
curriculum. Then, each member designed his or her own teaching course syllabus basing on this
standard. (Before, most of SoE lecturers did not have course syllabus or had simple ones).The
4
All projects, there were Vietnamese and foreign experts shared together duty in the project management team
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syllabus, in this design, is changed several things about how to organize teaching course with
active teaching and learning; how to guide students to find course resources; how to assess
students’ learning, so that the assessment is appropriate to the course curriculum objectives.
After designing syllabus, these lecturers applied them into their teaching courses. After one
semester application, SoE organized workshops and conferences for those persons to share their
experiences and results with other SoE colleagues. SoE, even organized a large conference on
“Designing course syllabus”, for there were a lot of CTU lecturers who came from other
faculties. Since this activity of the ALA project started, many more lecturers revised their course
syllabuses, which are more specific and clear on teaching activities, resources and assessment.
One SoE member said: "Learning through this project, I, did not only build teaching syllabus
clearly and seriously, but also applied the ways to assess students’ learning in order to be
consistent with the course objectives given initially. Thus the curriculum, teaching methods and
assessment in my course, now get more quality than before.”
In general, the process that the above projects implemented educational innovation is
nearly the same. This is a very close, practical and effective process, which can be
summarised with 5 steps of basic activities in a diagram in figure 1. The activities from
this project are similar to other project, but the contents applied in each project are
different. This process seems to be repeated in various types with different content, but the
results indicated that the more doing, the more lecturers making progress for the same objective
of educational innovation from teaching with “Teacher-center trend” to “Student-center trend”.
1. Learning active
teaching by
training
workshops or
study tours
2. Application in
class teaching
courses
5. Dissemination
the results to
colleagues in
conferences/
workshops
3. Observation
and giving
feedbacks
4. Discussion
and writing
lesson learns
Figure 1: The basic activities in the process of teaching reform in SoE
3.2.2 Results
Through activities of the international projects described above, teaching methods of SoE
lecturers have been changed clearly from the modules of subject knowledge to modules of
pedagogical skills. Teaching reform has been improved from revising the curriculum of modules
to applying active teaching strategies with using productive questions, new teaching
technologies, cooperative learning and formative assessment…Thank to these changes, quality
of subject knowledge and teaching skills of SoE students have been developed. Thus, SoE
students, in school teaching practice or being in-service teachers, have been highly appreciated
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about professional knowledge and pedagogical skills by many schools around The Mekong Delta
(SoE Annual report 2011-2012).
The relationship between SoE lecturers and school teachers around the MD through the above
international projects has become better and closer. This better cooperation leads to many good
opportunities for professional development of lecturers and teachers. In one hand, school
teachers have a chance to enhance subject knowledge and improve pedagogical skills. On the
other hand, SoE lecturers have a chance to experience the real teaching situations at schools with
the use of active teaching methods, then apply them into their teaching at the university, so that
they can help their students to become good teachers in the future (Nguyen, T.H.N, 2012).
SoE lecturers have been invited to trained active teaching methods for in-service teachers in
many schools located in the provinces around MD by Vietnamese Ministry of Education and
Training (MoET). SoE also plays an important role to train pedagogical skills for lecturers in
other faculties of CTU even lecturers in other universities and colleges around MD. Since 2012,
there is a “Center of Professional Development in Education” (CPDE) established in SoE based
on official permission of MoET. This center plays the main role of training pedagogical skills for
any person who needs to teach at higher education in MD. Most of teaching staff of this Center
comes from SoE (Interview Director of CPDE).
From the abovementioned, we found that teaching methodology of SoE lecturer staff has been
developed more and better. These results also confirm that the above international projects have
played an important role for sustainable development in education of SoE.
3.3
Impact of international collaboration on the improvement of research competence of
lecturers in the international learning community
Before 1996, very few of SoE lecturers involved in scientific research, so their research
capacity was limited. Since the international MHO4 project came, scientific research activities of
SoE staff have been developed obviously. Thus, research capacity of lecturer staff has really
been upgraded since 1996 up to now (Le, 2004). Their research competence has developed from
carrying out master or doctor thesis in supporting community of foreign country; doing research
in the international project; collaborative researching to write and publish papers, manuals and
books in international research groups. These research activities are discussed below:
Carrying out master or doctor thesis in supporting community of foreign country
As discussed above, there are many SoE lecturers who were trained to get master and doctor
degrees abroad. Thus, these persons have opportunities to do their thesis researches with foreign
experts. In the process of doing research, they enhanced their researching skills from research
methodology training course, guiding and supporting by their supervisors, experiencing
themselves throughout the implementation of their own research.
From researching, these people learned a lot on how to review literature and build research
questions, then definite research objectives. Next, they learned how to collect data by interview,
questionnaire and observation. Finally, they learned how to select, analyze and synthesize data in
many ways (qualitative and quantitative methods) in order to write the thesis. In such ways of
doing research, they were usually helped by their foreign supervisors. Therefore, after finishing
their thesis, they do not only develop their research competencies, but also build close
relationship between them and their supervisors. This relationship has been lasted in sustainable
development at the present and future even, after finishing their master or doctor programs and
return to SoE. Sometimes, they have some more other researches to work together in the same
international projects (Interview some of lecturers who get master or doctor degrees in foreign
countries).
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These masters and doctors have improved their research capacities from international
communities. The communities here are considered as the lecture and official staff, in the labs,
libraries, departments…of foreign faculties, who trained and supported the SoE researchers to
implement and finish their research at oversea countries. Thank to these supporting and sharing
communities, SoE lecture staff have been, not only promoted research competencies, but also
received good relationship between them and partners for sustainable development.
Doing research in the international project
There were several international projects which asked Vietnamese lecturers to cooperate with
foreign experts to do the research in working teams from the beginning to the end of the project,
for example MHO4 project, CTU-MSU project, LG project…In these projects, the foreign
research experts organized small workshops to train research methods for SoE researchers, so
that they could implement the project and collect data to carry out research in the ongoing
project. Throughout this process, they learned the ways to identify problems or specific research
questions, define research objectives, methods of collecting data through observation, personal
interviews, focus group discussion and questionnaire. SoE researchers also studied the way to
analyze and synthesize information and to write reports. They learned how to present results,
discuss information, and answer questions in national and international conferences. Generally,
doing research with foreign experts in these projects, SoE lecturers have become better
researchers and their research competencies have been upgraded more. They actually have
grown up from the communities of the research teams in the projects.
Collaborative researching to write and publish papers, manuals and books in
international research groups
Through international projects and individual cooperation with international experts, many SoE
and foreign researchers have researched together in different research groups. They have written
papers, manuals and books, which are very valuable for many various aspects such as
Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Literature, Geography, English, French, Psychology
and Education. From such cooperation in researching and sharing community, SoE researchers
have improved their writing skills a lot.. Thus, their research capacity has been remarkably
enhanced. For example, MHO4 project had published 31 lecture notes, 6 manuals, over 20
conference papers, 2 articles published in international journals (Le, 2004). The CTU-MSU
project had 12 papers presented at the international conferences in Thailand, Hong Kong, Brunei
and USA; 1 paper published in the international journal; 1 article published in the national
Educational Sciences Journal; 7 documents on KUA teaching model (Interview one member of
the CTU-MSU project management team).
From the above discussions, we see that research competencies of SoE lecturers have been
improved more and more. These competencies are trained naturally and practically through
specific collaborative research in groups of the international projects or partnerships to do thesis,
write papers or publish books. Such collaborative research in a project is considered the
international learning community in which Vietnamese and foreign researchers have a chance to
learn and share one another for professional development. Up to now such activities are
continuing in SoE in different subjects and different projects.
3.4 Challenges in Professional Development through International Collaboration
Getting the above successes, SoE leaders and lecturers have faced several challenges such as
conservative thinking of a number of lecturers, limited English skills of lecturers and
complicated administrative procedures from government.
Conservative thinking of lecturers: In the process of implementing innovative teaching
methods, there were several conservative lecturers. They did not want to change anything in their
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teaching. These people usually gave negative suggestions on teaching innovation. So, they are
making less progress and keep using passive teaching methods. These people mostly often fall
into the older ones (Interview former Dean of the second SoE).
Limited English skills of lecturers: Limited English ability has affected much more on
upgrading professional knowledge of lecture staff. So, these people have fewer opportunities to
participate in the international project or interact directly with foreign experts. Thus, their PD has
little improvement compared with those who have good English ability. Several projects have
overcome this trouble by training English language for SoE staff in different ways, organizing
training workshops with translation... This problem has been overcome gradually.
Complicated administrative procedures of government: This is an important problem, which
affects on the academic activities of SoE through international projects. For example, asking
permission for the visits of foreign delegations to schools in provinces of MD is usually difficult
and takes a long time. If no official permission, the schools do not allow for such visits. Another,
to get accepted procedure for study abroad is so hard! There were some cases of master or doctor
candidates had to delay their studies because of such complicated administrative procedures.
However, in recent years, these procedures have been improved. Vietnamese central and local
governments are more open-minded and give more favorable conditions to develop international
cooperation.
4. CONCLUSIONS
Globalization through international collaboration is considered as one of the important activities
for national development in many different fields. Specially, it has brought many positive effects
on higher education in Vietnam. In SoE, international cooperation has influenced on education
and research through curriculum studies, professional development and leadership skills.
Findings and discussion in this paper prove that the international collaboration has played an
very important role for stimulating professional development of SoE lecture staff with three
main improvements as: 1/ strengthening knowledge by international training and studying; 2/
improving teaching methods based on educational innovation from many effective activities of
the international projects; 3/ upgrading research competencies naturally and practically by
collaborative research in the international learning communities. Thank to these improvements,
the quality of teaching and researching of lecturers in SoE has been enhanced more and more.
Therfore, subject knowledge and pedagogical skills of SoE students have been improved, too.
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*About the Author
Ho Thi Thu Ho is a teacher educator/senior lecturer in The Geography Education Department at School of
Education, Can Tho University, Vietnam. She holds a Master degree of Science in Dynamics of Science and
Technology from University of Amsterdam, Holland from MHO4 project (1998-2000). She is currently a head of
Geography Education Department. Her areas of interests include Geography Education, Teaching Methodology,
Testing and Assessment. She has good opportunities to participate in many international projects in SoE such as
MHO4, CTU-MSU, LG and ALA projects. She had ever been a member of The CTU-MSU project management
team since 2001-2009.
Contact:
MSc. HO THI THU HO
Head of Geography Education Department
School of Education,
Can Tho University, Viet Nam
Email: httho@ctu.edu.vn
Tel: 84 0919845760
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