Women currently account for four percent of students enrolled in applied technology programs at Vietnam’s vocational schools. An initiative through the Higher Engineering Education Alliance Program (HEEAP) aims to change that.
This week Intel Products Vietnam awarded the first HEEAP Vocational Female Students Scholarship awards. Over 700 million VND was awarded to 109 students from 13 colleges and universities in Vietnam.
The scholarship program, which will run for three years, provides financial assistance in an effort to encourage more females to pursue technical fields in Vietnam. Up to 2.4 billion VND will be awarded through 2014.
HEEAP was initiated in 2010 with $5 million from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Intel and Arizona State University’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. Through a collaborative initiative with top technical universities and colleges in Vietnam, the goal is to improve the quality of Vietnam’s higher education curriculum and support the country’s growing high-tech industry.
A $2 million expansion of the program in 2011 enabled alliance partners to include modernization of vocational educational programs using the innovative approaches implemented in the inaugural program. The expansion also furthers efforts to recruit women to engineering and provides student scholarships.
Working closely with Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and leadership at partner universities and technical colleges, HEEAP partners are implementing programs and broad infrastructure that supports faculty training, curricula development and hands-on student learning experiences. Students gain the technical expertise, language proficiency, and the soft skills and competencies needed to succeed in a global economy.
Intel recently received the U.S. Secretary of State’s 2012 Award for Corporate Excellence for its pioneering work with HEEAP.
Since its start, HEEAP alliance partners have grown to include university partner Portland State University’s Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science and industry partners Siemens, Danaher and Cadence.
The program has trained more than 150 faculty members from Vietnam’s universities and colleges in advanced methods for teaching at ASU and in Vietnam.
Photographs by: Richard Nyberg, USAID
Written by: Heather Beshears
January 17, 2013