Privatization, Internationalization, and Graduate Employability in Higher Education

Higher education systems across Asia are being reshaped by two powerful and interconnected forces: the rapid expansion of private provision and the deepening of internationalization. Roughly 60% of global private higher education enrollments are in Asia. In several Asian countries, the private sector is the dominant mode of higher education provision. At the same time, internationalization is taking increasingly diverse forms: Asia hosts the majority of the world's international branch campuses and a growing number of international joint/binational universities, alongside expanding student mobility, transnational programs, and curriculum reform. Yet while scholarship on privatization and internationalization has grown substantially, these two forces are too often examined in isolation — and their combined implications for graduate employability remain underexplored.

This conference brings together scholars, graduate students, practitioners, policymakers, university administrators, and industry professionals to examine privatization, internationalization, and graduate employability as interconnected dimensions of contemporary higher education across Asia.

We are particularly interested in interdisciplinary approaches and comparative perspectives that engage with the Vietnamese context — a country where private higher education has grown rapidly since Đổi Mới, where internationalization is a stated policy priority, and where questions about graduate employability are increasingly pressing amid a fast-changing labor market.