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SINGAPORE: Singapore and Vietnam have signed an agreement to promote joint training programmes and school exchanges.

Singapore will also be awarding more scholarships to Vietnamese students.

These initiatives were laid out in a Memorandum of Understanding on Wednesday, signed by Education Ministers from Singapore and Vietnam.

Vietnam is one of the fastest growing economies in the region, with growth rates hitting an average of 7.5 per cent for the past five years.

Its leaders believe the key to sustaining this growth is educating its youth.

And one way to develop this push for education is by collaborating with countries such as Singapore to ink a Memorandum of Understanding and explore more tie-ups in areas such as student exchanges and teacher training.

One example is the expansion of twinning programmes, which allow for exchanges between staff and students of partner schools.

There are now 10 schools in Singapore that conduct such programmes with their counterparts in Vietnam.

And Education Minister Tharman Shamugaratnam hopes more schools will join in.

Another focus is the training of key staff members in schools.

According to Mr Tharman, customised courses have been jointly developed by the national institutes of education of both countries (National Institute of Education in Singapore, and the National Institute of Education and Management in Vietnam) and will be rolled out later this year.

He says, "We'll also develop with them teacher training institutions in Vietnam itself, and a development programme for school principals in Vietnam, which can hopefully over time also serve Cambodia and Laos.

"This is something that we're going to work out. Professor Nhan himself has an open-mind as to how this can be best done. It can follow the model that we did for technical training, the Vietnam-Singapore Technical Training Centre".

More government scholarships (from 20 in 2006 to 25 in 2007) will also be given out to Vietnamese students from the upper secondary and pre-university levels.

"If we send 100 people for Masters, PhD degree and 30 stay here to work, it's good, because they're in Singapore, they're still working in an excellent environment. They still have to fulfil the Singaporean requirements of business or work. So they learn and grow when they stay here. But I believe that after five or ten years they will return," says Professor Nguyen Thien, Vietnam Minister of Education and Training.

Both ministers believe that in the long term, such tie-ups in education, would boost cooperation in other areas. - CNA/yy

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