VietNamNet Bridge - The British University Vietnam and Apollo Education and Training chairman, Khalid Mudmood, discusses about the pros and cons of foreign investment in the education and training sector after its opening early next year following Vietnam’s WTO commitments.

Vietnam is committed to opening up its education and training sector to foreign investment in January, next year. What are the opportunities and challenges that foreign investors like you shall face?

The challenges that foreign investors in education face are no different to the challenges that foreign investors in other fields face. For example, the laws can be interpreted in different ways and the decision making process is very bureaucratic. Although the will to open up education to the private sector is certainly there at the senior levels of government, it will take time for things to get easier in terms of licencing and setting up. Changes of this type in any country takes time.

Do you agree that Vietnamese authorities are too slow in introducing a legal framework for foreign investment in the education and training sector? What are your recommendations to the Vietnamese government to deal with this?

Although I agree that introducing a legal framework has been slow I keep reminding myself that Vietnam has successfully changed a lot over the past decade and we should not overlook those achievements. One recommendation I have is to find a way to increase the salaries of civil servants so that the authorities can compete with business when it comes to attracting and retaining talent.

Another recommendation is that it’s been proven around the world that the key to development of a country’s education system is in improving the quality of teachers. Teachers are much more important than any other factor so when it comes to investing in education the majority of the effort should go towards improving the quality of the teachers.

I also feel that people and organisations need to be more patient. Change at the scale that Vietnam is going through takes time. Manchester United fans all recognise that it took years for Alex Ferguson to make an impact on Manchester United.

Vietnam’s skilled labour supply is far from meeting current demand, especially at foreign- invested enterprises. Why is this?

The reason is very simple. The pace of development in the education system has not managed to keep up with the pace of change in the economy. I feel it’s important not to just focus on the negative here because we also need to recognise that it’s the talent and work ethic of Vietnamese labour that attracts companies to invest here.

In general Vietnamese are recognised all around the world for their hard work ethic and ability to learn fast. I am confident that it’s just a matter of time before the education sector catches up with the economic needs of the country.

Apollo is known as one of the earliest licenced English education and training centres in Vietnam. What lessons have you drawn from operating this institution for your British University Vietnam, which is also the first European university licenced in Vietnam?

I can summarise it in one word, trust. It’s the trust that our corporate clients and thousands of individuals put in us and we need to keep meeting. We have large corporate clients such as HSBC, Prudential, Nokia, Nike, BP, the World Bank and Vietcombank who are very demanding about quality.

With many of these clients we have been meeting their language and communication needs since 1998. Parents have sent their children to Apollo for years too. The awards we received from both UK and Vietnamese governments endorse the trust we have gained from our customers. Apollo’s co-founder Arabella Peters and I are the only two foreign individuals in the private sector to receive the medal for education from the Ministry of Education and Training.

I recently received an MBE medal from the Queen of England for services to education in Vietnam. All these awards are in recognition of what the Apollo team has achieved. Although we still feel these are early days in our development in Vietnam I’m proud to say we have received more awards and recognition for our achievements than any other centres in Vietnam.

What do you think about the development of Vietnam’s education sector over the next few years?