Wiesbaden (dpa/lhe) - Hesse's Science Minister Angela Dorn (Greens) has opened a new campus for the Vietnamese-German University (VGU) near Ho Chi Minh City. In the medium term, the university should offer space for 5,000 students, the ministry announced on Friday. As a model university, it is based on the "principles of unity and freedom of research and teaching as well as institutional autonomy and academic self-government according to the German model," said Dorn, according to the announcement. According to the information, members of the Vietnamese government and German diplomats took part in the opening ceremony.
The university, founded in 2008 on a joint initiative by Vietnam and Hesse, is the first Vietnamese state university with an international partner that enjoys extensive autonomy. More than 2,400 people are currently completing courses in engineering and economics at the VGU. At the end of the course, both a German and a Vietnamese degree can be achieved. The Hessian state government supports the university with 2.1 million euros annually, the federal government contributes 1.5 million euros.
