Dong Thap University (DThU) is a regional tertiary educational institution located in Cao Lanh City, Dong Thap Province in Vietnam. DThU offers multi-level, multi-disciplinary, and multi-level of training models for the people of Vietnam and continues to seek international partners and expand cooperation with universities and organizations through programs, projects, scientific research and academic exchanges. It is guided by its vision of “Being a qualified and prestigious training center in the Mekong Delta and one of the universities training highly-qualified teachers in Vietnam”, DThU is recognized as one of a prestigious educational institutions that is very respected in Vietnam, every year it manages to enter the ranks of the top 60 universities of the country out of more than 400 higher education institutions in Vietnam.
Last August 2019, a delegate from Samar State University headed by the University President Dr. Marilyn Cardoso, together with Dr. Gina Españo, Dean of the College of Education, Dr. Alex Cardoso, Focal Person for QA of the College of Industrial Technology, and Dr. Elmer Irene, Director for International Affairs went to DThU to sign a Memorandum of Understanding between SSU and DThU for academic and research collaboration.
As stated in the MOU, the two institutions agree to develop the following collaborative activities including but not limited to: a) Exchange of faculty, lecturers and researchers, and other research and administrative staff; exchange of students; conduct of collaborative research projects; conduct of lectures and organizing of symposia; exchange of academic information and materials that are of mutual interest; and promotion of other cooperative opportunities as mutually agreed.
A year after, several engagements were conducted in 2020 despite the pandemic. The student exchange was marred by the declaration of lockdowns and travel restrictions due to the outbreak of the Virus in February in Vietnam, yet the students proceed and successfully conducted their program. Research conferences were made online and two joint research conferences by DThU and SSU were conducted in those two fora, presenters from SSU successfully presented their papers, namely: The 1st International Conference on Mathematics and Mathematics Education on July 25, 2020, and on the morning of December 27, DThU in collaboration with SSU held an international conference on Natural Science and Environment in offline and online platforms with 21 articles printed in the Conference Proceedings and 6 presentations at the conference. In both events, Dr. Marilyn Cardoso delivered a Welcome message virtually and was applauded by the DThU participants.
