VNU Vice President Nguyen Huu Duc and AUN-QA Acting Chairperson Nantana Gajaseni co-chaired the closing ceremony of the 128^th AUN-QA Assessment at Programme Level on December 20, 2018. The event also had the participation of representatives from functional departments of VNU, Institute for Education Quality Assurance, leaders of ULIS and UET, together with officials and lecturers of the two assessed programmes.

At the closing ceremony, the accrediting experts presented 11 evaluation criteria of the AUN standards, such as output standards, teaching and learning approaches, quality of academic staff, student evaluation, etc…. Based on these criteria, strengths, areas for improvement and recommendations of the experts for the two programmes were presented at the closing ceremony and through the experts’ detailed reports to the two concerned institutions. Although the AUN experts recognized employers' satisfaction with the quality of the two programmes’ graduates, they suggested that the programmes’ offerers invest more in improving facilities to enhance the students’ practice for better meeting the actual labour market’s demands. The AUN experts also recommended the leaders of VNU's affiliates to exchange with other training institutions in Southeast Asia and the world over for more experience to modify and develop their own academic programmes.

The representatives of ULIS and UET said that they would reflect on the recommendations from the AUN expert team and there would soon be more specific improvement to the newly-assessed training programmes.

Speaking at the closing ceremony, Prof. Nantana Gajaseni thanked VNU for the trust it has given to the AUN network in general and AUN-QA standards in particular. She expressed her wish that the AUN members including VNU, would continue to work to create a quality accrediting culture at universities in Southeast Asia countries.

VNU Vice President Nguyen Huu Duc had a speech at the ceremony

VNU Vice President Nguyen Huu Duc expressed his belief that the comments and recommendations from the AUN experts would guide the accredited training programmes in improving their quality to be a model of encouragement for other VNU’s affiliates to propose their programmes for AUN-QA accreditation.

Previously, on December 18, 2018, VNU Vice President Nguyen Huu Duc and AUN - QA Acting Chairperson Nantana Gajaseni co-chaired the opening ceremony of the 128th AUN - QA assessment at programme level.

The 6 VNU’s programmes accredited with AUN - QA standards in 2018 have raised the total number of VNU’s accredited programmes and institutions to 29 (28 training programmes and 1 training institution, VNU HUS).

Besides, at the end of October 2018, QS Asia University Rankings announced the ranking results for 2019. Accordingly, VNU rose to 124th in the QS Asia Rankings (an increase by 15 places in comparison with 2018), was featured in QS World Rankings Top 1,000, and was listed as Number 1 among the Vietnamese education institutions.

According to the second 2018 Webometrics Rankings, VNU has returned to No. 1 position in Vietnam, 1,306^th in the world (144 places up compared with 1,450^th by the first Webometrics Rankings in January 2018); the 25^th  in Southeast Asia, and 368^th  in Asia.

The World University Rankings by Academic Performance (URAP) has listed 7 Vietnamese universities with VNU on top.

Also in 2018, the US News’ Best Global University Rankings listed VNU as the only university in Vietnam with the field of Physics qualified for ranking (502^nd place  globally).

The above shows VNU leaders’ vision, efforts and high determination in constructing a quality culture which is increasingly internationally recognized and acknowledged.