Pearson and AWS Report: 96% of Vietnamese Universities Invest in AI, Only 15% of Employers Rate Graduates' AI Skills Excellent

Pearson and Amazon Web Services (AWS) released the report "Prepared for AI: Bridging Higher Education and Employment in Vietnam" in Hanoi on October 6. The survey covered six markets: Brazil, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Vietnam. 96% of surveyed Vietnamese higher education leaders said their institutions are investing in AI, and 84% said they regularly communicate with businesses to understand market needs. The report also found that only 15% of Vietnamese employers rate graduates' key AI-integrated workplace capabilities as "excellent", while more than 52% of Vietnamese students rated themselves as prepared to work in AI-integrated environments.

The report provides verifiable supply- and demand-side data on AI talent development in Vietnam: university investment and curriculum updates are accelerating, but employer recognition of graduates' AI capabilities remains low, indicating that curriculum content, capability assessment and skill certification are not yet clearly connected. For education product practitioners, the report points to combining AI skills with creative thinking, critical thinking, data analysis, communication and collaboration, and embedding them in core training courses rather than only teaching tool use; for regulators, it recommends improving the legal framework for incorporating international digital skills certifications into university curricula. The report is based on a six-country survey, and the specific sample size and sampling method for Vietnam are not disclosed in the original text, so the findings should be treated as survey findings rather than an independent impact evaluation. Vietnamese universities' AI curricula and certification arrangements may adjust in response to employer feedback, with teacher training in AI teaching methods and employer participation in advisory boards and funded practical projects becoming observable directions. AI learning products and skill certification services targeting Vietnam's higher education market need to address the gap between students' high self-rated confidence and low employer recognition.