Using Vietnam’s special education mechanisms

Resolution 248/2025/QH15 · Special education policies

The detail

1. The rule and its status

The National Assembly grants specified education institutions additional personnel, digital/international cooperation and investment mechanisms, subject to the resolution's scope and implementation. In force: adopted December 10, 2025; effective January 1, 2026 under Article 9. Official Vietnamese full text.

2. Who it affects and what it means for a US school

This matters particularly to faculty/researcher appointments, academic events, digital cooperation and investment planning. Article 2(1)(c) gives vocational and higher-education institutions specified autonomy to identify positions, recruit and contract doctoral experts/scientists who are foreign nationals or overseas Vietnamese. It also provides institutional responsibility for recruitment and confirmation of work-permit-exempt foreign experts/scientists for teaching/research for no more than three years. Check the person's eligibility, evidence and implementing process; this is not a blanket exemption for everyone carrying a university invitation.

The special statutory mechanism must be reconciled with the general worker decree. A summary that says every foreign lecturer necessarily follows the same MOET-confirmation category is incomplete. Article 9(2) gives the resolution priority where it differs on the same matter from another National Assembly law/resolution, with Article 9(3)'s exception for later more favorable mechanisms. Do not use that clause as permission to ignore immigration, recordkeeping or unrelated requirements.

3. What to do, by partnership model

• Recruitment: distinguish institutional authority to hire personnel from authority to recruit students or operate a program. The resolution does not turn a recruitment agreement into educational permission.
• 2+2/3+1: identify which institution appoints visiting faculty and which entity can document the applicable personnel route. Preserve records independently from student credit decisions.
• Dual degree/joint program: map foreign experts/scientists' duties, qualifications, contract, duration and institutional decision process against Article 2 and current implementation. General academic staffing shares are not work-permit evidence.
• Online/blended: Article 4 supports digital infrastructure and shared platforms; it does not replace the specific program-mode, LMS, data and recognition conditions.
• Branch campus: Article 6 contains land/investment facilitation mechanisms, but the exact project still needs the applicable investment, establishment and operating route under current legislation.

For academic events, Article 4(2) permits institutions in the listed fields to organize international conferences with advance notice to their direct managing authority, while preserving special rules for specified senior foreign participants and sensitive subjects. Check the actual field, guests and subject; do not describe every international conference as notification-only. Article 4(3)'s Vietnamese public HEI abroad mechanism is distinct from a US institution's branch in Vietnam.

4. Change history

This resolution creates special mechanisms rather than a whole-document replacement of 219/2025 or the education laws. Article 7 addresses the end of public institutional councils and associated management transitions. Article 8 assigns implementation to the Government and MOET. Article 9 supplies the effective date and conflict rules. Official Articles 7–9. Later decrees must be read within this statutory framework; a future general worker decree is not proof that the special mechanism disappears.

5. Sources and verification

Official Vietnamese full text · Government legal record

Last verified: 2026-10-22. English explanation; the official Vietnamese text controls.

6. Related pages

Current foreign workers · December worker regime · Higher Education Law · University Atlas · ASU research/capacity case.

7. Briefing and legal note

Not legal advice. Prepare a briefing with a USVN senior advisor using the actual personnel, event or investment facts to distinguish special statutory mechanisms from the general procedure and identify the evidence required.

For general information only, not legal advice. Confirm requirements with qualified counsel and the relevant Vietnamese authorities before acting.