LookAtVietnam – The Netherlands organization for international cooperation in higher education, also known as Nuffic, is looking to strengthen educational cooperation between Dutch and Vietnamese universities and help human resource development in this economy.

Vietnamese students would get more of such scholarships if they showed qualifications.

Van Den Eijnden said on Wednesday that offering scholarships to Vietnamese students and scholars was part of the plans. He clarified there were two types of scholarship available for Vietnamese candidates.

Van Den Eijnden said the Netherlands had reserved a budget of up to 40 million euro for Vietnam and other countries under a fellowship program. This grant will be for those who work at companies and Government agencies to travel to the Netherlands to improve their skills in specific fields.

The second scholarship program, known as Huygens Scholarship Program (HSP), is for talented foreign students who want to study in the Netherlands or do research.

Van Den Eijnden said the Netherlands made 10 million euro for the HSP scholarships in 2009-2010, and Vietnamese students were among the candidates for this type of scholarship program. He stressed the beneficiaries of the scholarships were chosen based on their performance.

Malte Stokhof, director of Nuffic Neso Vietnam, clarified as the scholarships were not divided equally among countries, Vietnamese students would get more of such scholarships if they showed qualifications.

Van Den Eijnden said around 170 Vietnamese students went to the Netherlands last year, but the European country was looking for more qualifiers from Vietnam. “The number of Vietnamese students in our country has grown steadily over the past years. We want to attract more from Vietnam.”

He said the Netherlands attracted the Vietnamese students to the fields important for the development of Vietnam, including agriculture and agricultural management, cooking processing, and business administration.

Independent students can choose trade and finance, tourism, entertainment, environment, architecture, urban design, and information and communication technology. All the courses are run in English.

Van Den Eijnden said Nuffic was working to build better connectivity between universities of the two countries; for example in developing joint education programs and higher education. Local institutions that have had cooperation programs with their Dutch counterparts include Ton Duc Thang University, the Hanoi National University, the HCMC University of Technology, Long Bien College and the Danang University of Economics.

* The Education New Zealand Care office in HCMC just announced a scholarship program for best-performing Vietnamese students who want to obtain international baccalaureate diplomas at the Auckland International College.

Some ten scholarships are awarded each year for Vietnamese graduates of high-schools, and winners will be given scholarships of two to three years, after which they are expected to enter top world-ranked universities, the office said in a statement. Candidates will have to take exams on English and mathematics.

A conference on this scholarship program will be held on March 21 at the office at 40/7 Lu Gia Street in District 11, but interested students should apply for the scholarship prior to March 20.

VietNamNet/SGT