Abstract

Vietnam’s higher education accreditation has been officially implemented for over ten years under the central management of the Ministry of Education and Training. Recently, the Minister of Education and Training has approved the accreditation strategic plan for Vietnam’s higher education from 2017 to 2020. One of the ambitious goals of this plan is to accredit all universities and 10 percent of higher education programmes by the end of 2020. This paper first presents a brief overview of Vietnam’s higher education accreditation system. It then outlines the main points of the higher education accreditation strategic plan 2017–2020, followed by an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages for the implementation of this plan. The paper concludes with several recommendations to fulfil this ambitious accreditation plan. The recommendations are for all levels of Vietnam’s higher education accreditation system: macro level (government), meso level (accrediting agencies), and micro level (higher education institutions).