Spring 2024 Update Top 10 Overseas Study Destinations for Young Vietnamese

16:14 14/03/2024

These countries host over 90% of all Vietnamese studying abroad, 58% of whom are close to home in East Asia. Australia is now the leading English-speaking destination, a place it frequently trades with the US.

Spring 2024 Update

These countries host over 90% of all Vietnamese studying abroad, 58% of whom are close to home in East Asia. Australia is now the leading English-speaking destination, a place it frequently trades with the US.

I occasionally see reports with outdated statistics in the Vietnamese and English language media. For example, a recent Acumen report was widely inaccurate stating that ” Vietnam had by far the largest number of outbound students, 132,000″ among Southeast Asian countries and getting it wrong across the board, e.g., 14,100 Vietnamese students in Australia and 9,000 in Canada. Why? It made the mistake of relying on UNESCO for the data. In its 6 March 2024 report, ICEF makes the mistake of relying on Acumen’s research and UNESCO statistics, noting that there are 137,000 outbound Vietnamese students “according to the last UNESCO count.”

Whenever possible, I try to find primary source information from the host country’s government. The second best option is a secondary source that quotes a government official from that country, e.g., an interview with Dr. Kambiz Ghawami, president of the World University Service of Germany. Some governments are better than others in providing up-to-date and comprehensive information.

S. Korea: 70,888 (2023) Vietnam ranked 1st among sending countries. Most of these students are enrolled in language and vocational programs, making them qualitatively quite different from their peers studying in other countries.

Japan: 37,405 (2022) Vietnam ranked 2nd. As with S. Korea, most of these students are enrolled in language and vocational programs.

Australia: 32,948 (12-23) Vietnam ranked 6th.

USA: 26,919 (2-24) Vietnam ranked 6th.

Taiwan: 23,700 (12-22) Vietnam ranked 1st. About 16,000 are enrolled in degree programs and more than 7,000 in Chinese language or exchange 

Canada: 21,000 (12-23)

China: 14,000 (2023) 

Singapore: 9,000 (2023) The article is in Vietnamese. I’ve seen this figure in previous years. I contacted the Singapore Ministry of Education but didn’t receive a response. I suspect the current number is substantially lower.

Germany: 7,600 (2023) 

UK: 7,140 (2021/22 – HE only) This figure does not include the number of boarding and day school students. My guesstimate is around 500.

TOTAL: 250,600 (91% of the total, which I estimate to be about 275,000)

Top 15 countries include France (5,000 in 2023), Russia (3,000 in 2022/23), Finland (2,000 in 2022/23), New Zealand (2,000 in 2022), and Malaysia (1,000 in 2023). Other countries with healthy numbers of Vietnamese students, mostly in the hundreds, include Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, the Philippines (English programs), and Spain.

Based on these numbers, it’s clear that the post-pandemic recovery is in full swing.

Shalom (שלום), MAA