A MODEL OF ONLINE HIGHER EDUCATION IN VIETNAM: THE CASE OF HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

Although being developed at almost the same time with the Internet, it was not until recently that the role of online education was taken into account and widely recognized. Perhaps for the first time in human history, there have been billions of individuals engaged in online learning at all levels of education and training. Due to the social distancing restriction during the COVID-19 pandemic, online education has replaced traditional education, helping the majority of students who do not need to go to school to study and acquire knowledge through the Internet. However, online education which plays a complementary role for traditional education is only in the beginning stage of development. In order to have a comprehensive view of the role of online higher education in the new stage of development, the paper mentioned the development of online higher education in the recent times, especially in the period of the Covid-19 epidemic. Besides, it is also necessary to redefine the online education model to suit the conditions of educational institutions in Vietnam. A model of online education at Hanoi Open University is given as a reference framework for other educational institutions. Last but not least, some quality assurance standards for online higher education are also proposed based on the model survey conducted by Hanoi Open University.