According to the decision number 335/QĐ-BGDĐT signed by the Ministry of Education and Training on January 21, 2008, SEAMEO RETRAC has been assigned to be one of the three Doctorate Preparation Centers in Vietnam. Responsibilities of SEAMEO - RETRAC include, but are not limited to, the following tasks

• Designing and offering English courses (and courses of other languages such as Cantonese or Russian) for doctorate students to achieve at least 550 scores of TOEFL or 6.5 for IELTS (and equivalent for other languages), meeting the admission requirement of studying abroad.
• Providing knowledge and skills in research methodology, essays writing, and other life skills to survive in foreign countries.
• Assisting candidates to apply (online) for national and international scholarships.
• Enhancing the awareness of the country and regulations for students learning abroad.

Besides, thanks to its close relationship with different universities in many countries in the world such as The United States, The United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, etc., SEAMEO –RETRAC will help students in this program identify suitable universities, complete admission application package and visa. More importantly, students from this program can receive some kind of assistantship from foreign partner universities of SEAMEO-RETRAC. The assistantship includes scholarship, fellowship, research assistance, and teaching assistance, and so on from the hosting universities where the students are recruited.

Program objectives

The major objectives of the training program are to help the students:

• improve their language proficiency and achieve TOEFL score of 550 or IELTS 6.5 ( and equivalent for other languages ) or higher to meet the admission requirements of studying abroad;
• be equipped with essential academic knowledge and skills that assist them in studying overseas graduate program  such as academic reading , essay writing, group discussion and presentation, listening & note-taking, research methodology, and research  proposal writing.
• develop other college skills such as library research, Computer/Internet, and   strategies for self-directed learning  as well as strategies for  working with supervisors and academic advisors.
• enhance cross cultural awareness and be well-prepared with necessary information about studying and living abroad as well as complete admission & visa requirements.  

Program instructors

SEAMEO RETRAC has a core faculty of approximately 150 experienced Native English speaking and Vietnamese instructors, who hold university degrees and graduate and/or post graduate qualifications in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) or in other languages (Cantonese/Mandarin or Russian) and have good experience in language teaching to Asian learners in general and to Vietnamese learners in particular.
Of this highly qualified, experienced and motivated team, instructors who have strong educational background in various countries and substantial experience in teaching professional adults within the corporate sector will be selected for the programs. They not only help students improve their language proficiency and develop academic study skills but also give the consultancy on students’ studying & living abroad.

Facilities

Located in the heart of Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam, SEAMEO RETRAC is an ideal venue for the training programs.
Forty-five air conditioned classrooms and three auditoriums are well-equipped with computers, ADSL connection, LCD projectors, and video/ cassette players.  Additionally, in order for the students of this program to improve their listening skills, a cable television system is provided in each classroom.  
Two multimedia computer labs with 50 computer stations & ADSL connection provides students with free access to the Internet & plenty of language learning software.  Besides, all students and instructors can also access freely to the WiFi system from everywhere at SEAMEO RETRAC.   
Students are also encouraged to participate in the self-study programs & tutoring sessions at the Library and Information Center and the Self-Access Learning Center (SALC). At the library, students can access to thousands of academic books, scholarly journals, and publications.  They can easily find various language self-study materials (worksheets, cassette/video tapes, CD-ROMs, VCDs/DVDs, software…) and great assistance from an enthusiastic team of Vietnamese & Native instructors at SALC. More information please visit www.vnseameo.org   

Outcomes (up to August 31, 2008)

In the past several years, SEAMEO RETRAC has been organizing many pre-departure programs for learners from different projects. Particularly,

• SEAMEO RETRAC has organized five pre-departure courses for 170 candidates of Project 322 since 2004. All of them have successfully   completed the training and met the requirements for their studies in different graduate programs overseas.  
• In April 2008, the first batch of 230 doctorate candidates in the South of Vietnam participated in the 4 -week intensive English training course at SEAMEO RETRAC  to improve their TOEFL scores up to 500 or higher to meet the minimum requirement for the next step selection of the program.  
• Also in 2008, the Cantonese pre-departure course was offered to pre-doctorate candidates who applied for their study in China & Taiwan.