International Education as an Export Sector: An Investigation of 49 Vietnamese Universities and Colleges Using Bayesian Analysis

Under the tendency of the marketisation of tertiary education, universities/colleges and governments across the world have increasingly regarded international education as an education services export sector. Vietnam has always been regarded as a country of importing rather than exporting international education. Nevertheless, more and more evidence shows that Vietnamese tertiary education institutions are increasingly successful in recruiting international students. To gain further insight into international students in Vietnam, we conducted a survey with 49 tertiary education institutions in Vietnam. Our findings reveal that while most full-time international students in Vietnam are intra-regional (i.e., coming from Asian countries), short-time international students are both intra-regional and extra-regional. Using a Bayesian analysis as a method, we found that, first, the main concerns of international students in Vietnam do not revolve around academic-related factors; and second, the success of Vietnamese tertiary education institutions in attracting international students was mainly associated with operation-related factors.