Remote education was growing well before COVID-19, but the pandemic accelerated the practice and intensified the need to develop quality assurance standards to ensure student learning outcomes.  Moreover, there are now fully online programs and universities worldwide, adding pressure for Vietnam to catch up. The Vietnamese Prime Minister’s decision number 131/QD-TTg underscored the government’s priority in developing a national strategy for digitization in higher education aimed at 2030. Vietnam National University-Hanoi (VNUHN) received government approval in 2023 to pilot online education, beginning with the remote delivery of the core courses required at all member universities.

To support VNUHN in meeting its mission, on April 10, 2024, the USAID Partnership for Higher Education Reform project organized a webinar on NSQOL standards, led by Dr. Michael Truong, Associate Professor of Leadership & Higher Education and the Director of Faculty Development at Azusa Pacific University, in California.

More than 60 faculty and staff from VNUHN and its member universities participated in the webinar, learning about the NSQOL quality standards for online teaching, online course, and online academic programs, and examining the rationale that underpin effective online delivery.

The Institution for Education Quality Assurance (VNU-INFEQA) is leading a VNUHN task force charged with the development of standards, criteria, tools and procedures to evaluate online courses with the technical support from project experts. Online courses and programs delivered by Vietnamese universities will eventually need to meet quality standards, but the first step is developing those standards. The next step for the webinar participant will be to engage in online coaching sessions, in-person training, and technical consultations with the project expert.