A national workshop took place on February 20, 2009, during which 50 participants, education managers, university leaders and urban programmers discussed the development of university areas.

Tan Tao University City, invested in by Tan Tao Group, to be located in Duc Hoa district in Long An province, is expected to see the construction of basic items completed by mid year.

Nguyen Tien Dinh, MA, from Phuong Nam Architecture, the consultant to the project, said that Tan Tao University will follow the model of prestigious US universities. The university area will include an administration zone, gather member universities, and have technical infrastructure, transportation and services like an urban area. It is expected that the first training course at the university level will be provided in 2010.

The first ideas for the project on Da Lat International University City have also been drawn up.

Nevertheless, Nguyen Do Dung, Programming Director under Investcons, a construction design and consultancy company, said that the above projects are just complexes of faculties and universities, while they are not university cities in the true sense of the word.

Urban programmers say that university areas need to have inhabitants, but the questions raised are who will the inhabitants of the areas be, where will they live and how will they be managed? According to Prof Pham Phu, in the current conditions, it would be very difficult to manage local residents in university areas.

Nguyen Thiem, an architect from the HCM City Programming Association, identified problems that could occur with university areas. “Universities should focus on education only, while urban areas need to be managed by authorities.”

Former Minister of Education and Training, Prof Dr Tran Hong Quang, Chairman of the Association of Non-state Universities and Junior Colleges, said that Vietnam now needs to have a government decree to legalise the university city model. However, Ton Tu Thi Ninh, former Deputy Chairwoman of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee, chairwoman of Tri Viet University’s founding council, said that it is still too early to talk about legal matters.

According to Prof Dr Phan Thanh Binh, many more workshops are needed to come up with answers for lingering questions: Will Vietnam’s university cities have inhabitants? Who will manage the university cities’ populations and how?

VietNamNet/Tuoi tre