The United States Agency for International Development, frequently known as USAID, is a US federal government agency that is essentially responsible for administering civilian foreign aid to several nations around the world.
The grants and programs of the USAID are all tailored to assist in the attainment of its general agency mission which is to \”extend a hand to those people overseas striving to make an improved life, recover from a disaster or striving to live in a free and democratic country.\”
In accordance with this mission, the United States Agency for International Development Headquarters in Bangkok has recently established the Improving Higher Education Quality Program in Vietnam.
The programme plans to strengthen the human and institutional capacity of local Vietnamese higher education institutions, in an attempt to create and administer quality education programs, training, and diverse research programs that support significant economic growth.
USAID has explained that this program resulted from the movement of Vietnam, changing into a middle-income country status, rather than originally being a low-income country. As a result of this rapidly changing economic landscape, the education system of the country is suffering from tremendous pressure.
The Improving Higher Education Quality Programme tries to cure that concern, by way of constituting programs and activities that could possibly leave behind institutional legacies which are highly capable of providing effective human capital development.
Among all of the areas of concern are the educations system\’s institutional differentiation and autonomy, training, pay, and promotion of professors, reconstruction of instructional methods, development of 21st century education managers and leaders, and finally, the development and usage of relevant curriculum.
In its Higher Education Reform Agenda (HERA), the Vietnamese government has stated that the education system will be critically improved through improving the quality of teaching and research, extending the autonomy of higher education institutions particularly in educational and administrative matters, with an end goal of improving responsiveness to the needs of beneficiaries; and ultimately, accelerating private sector investments.
The recipients of the grant award will be tasked to develop programs and initiatives that will address these concerns, and as a result, the USAID Headquarters in Bangkok is ready to administer a funding amount of $2,500,000 to help this initiative.
USAID has stated that the associations and institutions who will be eligible to submit an application under this programme are the following:
a) US or non-US non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
b) Non-profit or for-profit organizations
c) Academic institutions
d) Private sector entities.
Iola Bonggay maintains one the most comprehensive Websites offering information on government grants and federal government programs.
She also provides resources to other Websites with information on environmental grants and grants for youth programs.