Discussion on collaboration in education for Cambodian in Thai Nguyen University

In the first speech, Mr. Chan Chea indicated a willingness to further strengthen the cooperation in terms of education and training between the two governments. According to him, educating key staff of the Cambodian government for human resources development would be the kick-off step of this cooperation activity under the funding of Cambodian and Vietnamese governments.

Mr. Chan Chea and other members from Cambodia

Some prioritized fields would be focused on in this initial period are Health Care, Agriculture and Forestry, where Thai Nguyen University with more than 100 academic disciplines was selected to be the host institution owing to its reputations in standards of education & research, ease of access and reasonable study costs for Cambodian students.

In terms of agriculture and forestry, Cambodia possesses a large area of land with high potentials for agriculture and forestry development. Nonetheless, one-crop agricultural lands occupy a high proportion out of the cultivated lands. The population is now nearly 15 million with the majority of ethnic minorities who has rather limited cultivation techniques, inducing low production yields. For instance, rice productivity reaches only 6 tons/ha. In addition, private companies and international contractors are highly encouraged to invest in afforestation, in which one company can be allocated a maximum land area of 10,000 ha with 70 year lease, said Mr. Chan Chea.

Assoc. Prof. Nguyen The Hung, The Director of International Affairs was introducing about TUAF in the meeting.

On behalf of TUAF, the rector, Dr. Tran Van Dien and TUAF senate members, highly appreciated the proposals for cooperation in education and technology transfer with Thai Nguyen University in general and TUAF in particular. Several recommendations were given as bellow:

· Make a proposal for educating Cambodian at TUAF and submit to Vietnamese and Cambodian governments for approval and funding;
· The modes of education and training will be designed according to the request from Cambodian side, which might be at different levels such as undergraduate, graduate, short training courses,… and in English or in Vietnamese;
· TUAF can offer some scholarships for Cambodian students, including full and partial scholarships;
· Cooperate with one Cambodian institution for educational delivery in Cambodia, in which TUAF will send lecturers to Cambodia for teaching at different levels;
· Link between education and research. The funding from government protocol projects can be utilized for this activity;
· TUAF will liaise with entrepreneurs for possible funding in agriculture and afforestation projects in Cambodia;
· Establish technology transfer center in Cambodia,…

Mr. Chan Chea agreed and acknowledged the feasibility of the aforementioned proposals. He suggested signing an MOU for comprehensive cooperation and drafting the proposals as soon as possible to realize the proposed activities.

Visiting the Institute of Life Science

After the meeting, the Cambodian delegation visited the university faculties, research institutes, centers and student dormitory. Mr. Chan Chea eventually stated that this would be an excellent place for Cambodian students to come and study.

A delegation from Thai Nguyen University were therefore planned to visit Cambodia and discuss the cooperation activities by the end of March this year.