The Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training has sought cooperation with the U.S. Educational Testing Service (ETS) to realize Vietnam’s goal of gradually making English the second language in schools.

Nguyen Kim Son, Minister of Education and Training in Vietnam, shared about the country’s new initiative to improve the quality of English teachers and enhance students' foreign language skills in order to fulfill this goal during his working session with ETS CEO Amit Sevak in the U.S. on Tuesday.

The event took place during the recent visit of a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation led by Party General Secretary and State President To Lam, who attended the United Nations Summit of the Future and the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, and held working sessions in the U.S. from Saturday last week through Wednesday this week.

Son underlined the importance of improving English teachers' quality and requested ETS’ support to help the Ministry of Education and Training achieve this goal.

He proposed that the collaboration on this initiative could be added to the existing memorandum of understanding signed by the ministry and ETS in September 2022.

The education minister also expressed his gratitude to ETS for providing training sessions for approximately 3,500 Vietnamese education officials and teachers on assessment skills in November last year.

He elaborated that this training course will help improve the knowledge and competence of those involved in testing and assessment, especially as Vietnam plans to make adjustments to the national high school graduation exam in 2025.

The ETS leader extended his sympathy for the challenging time that Vietnam has experienced due to typhoon Yagi, which caused damages estimated at VND81.5 trillion (US$3.31 billion) across northern Vietnam and killed 299 with 34 missing after making landfall on the country’s northeastern coast on September 7.

Sevak praised Vietnam’s commitment and determination to gradually make English the second language in schools, which he said would accelerate the country’s international integration efforts.

He shared that ETS has collaborated with more than 20 governments globally and has extensive experience in English training and assessment, emphasizing ETS’ readiness to support Vietnam in achieving the goal.

ETS will send its experts to Vietnam to continue supporting the country in assessment practices and improving the quality of its English teachers, the CEO added.

At the meeting, Son invited Sevak to visit Vietnam to finalize and sign an updated memorandum of understanding in early 2025.

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