BUILD-IT Sustainability Review

The activity's primary goal is to enhance the capacity of Vietnamese universities to foster productive partnerships with industry partners, thereby contributing to the country's efforts to increase university autonomy and reduce financial dependence on the government. Since 2019, the Government of Vietnam has been promoting university autonomy, and successful UIPs can play a crucial role in keeping academic programs relevant, promoting quality education, and helping universities be more responsive to market needs. The BUILD-IT Partnership has been instrumental in establishing UIPs, which have provided applied learning opportunities for students, strengthened industry advisory boards, and expanded universities' capacity to foster productive partnerships. The activity has also focused on capacity building for university partners' leadership and faculty, promoting quality education, program accreditation, funding diversification, and autonomy efforts. Pedagogical training has improved faculty's teaching methodologies, and UIPs have supported universities' capabilities in autonomous operation by changing their mindset regarding autonomy, enhancing their institutional brand image, and raising their quality profiles. One notable example of the activity's success is the Maker Innovation Space (MIS) sponsored by BUILD-IT, a co-working space for universities and industry partners that has elevated the status of Can Tho University as a premier research facility, enhanced facilities for students and staff, and attracted more investment and partnership opportunities. However, the activity has also faced several challenges and barriers to effective autonomous operations, including limited engagement from industry partners, limited scope and funding for student activities, and lack of direct and close connections between universities and industry partners. Additionally, there are barriers to expanding female engagement, including female reluctance to take on leading roles in some project-based learning activities. The activity has also faced challenges in supporting universities' autonomous operation, including unclear policies, limited resources, and slow-changing mindsets among top university leaders. Furthermore, BUILD-IT trainers have lacked local understanding, resulting in their limited capability to support universities to develop workable strategies for autonomous operation. Based on these findings, the activity has made several recommendations to continue expanding provision of training sessions to enhance capacity building of university leaders and faculty, exploring strategies to increase funding for student experiential learning activities, and providing more focus on AUN-QA accreditation. The activity has also recommended that USAID consider signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Education and Training to facilitate more engagement of education policy makers in BUILD-IT and similar activities and to further develop and improve autonomy-related policies.