The extraordinary backstory gracing what may be Vietnam’s most aspirational university exemplifies the new educational models taking shape in a crowded South-east Asian country perched at an economic and demographic crossroads.
Hanoi’s VinUniversity is one of the many subsidiaries of Vingroup, Vietnam’s largest private conglomerate, whose activities – shopping malls, hotels, resorts, residential developments, e-commerce, renewable energy, electric vehicles, high-speed rail, robotics, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, as well as non-profit schools, hospitals and charitable foundations – have their genesis in Mivina instant noodles, a household name in Ukraine.
Founder Pham Nhat Vuong, who had studied in Moscow, established his Technocom food production business in Kharkiv in 1993. He sold it to Nestlé in 2010 and returned to his native Vietnam as the country’s richest person. His philanthropic efforts since then have included plunging 6,500 Vietnamese dong (£182 million) into non-profit VinUni in 2019.
The fledgling university, said to be the world’s first higher-education institution with a one-word name, shares its founder’s aspirational zeal. Highly selective – its students average 1,480 out of a perfect 1,600 in the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it says – it boasts a student-staff ratio of just 11 to one and plans to expand its 2,000-odd enrolments to 3,500 by the end of the decade.
