Vietnam lacks even a single university of recognized quality. No Vietnamese institution appears
in any of the widely used (if problematic) league tables of leading Asian universities. In this
respect Vietnam differs even from other Southeast Asian countries, most of whom boast at least a
handful of apex institutions. Vietnam’s universities are largely isolated from international
currents of knowledge, as the poor publication record displayed in Table 1 suggests and Professor
Hoang Tuy powerfully illustrates in his essay.3