Internationalised Master’s Education for Sustainable Development: Aspirations and Access Barriers among Youth Climate Actors in Vietnam

Abstract

Internationalisation-at-Home has become an important development strategy for Vietnamese higher education sector. In this effort, internationalised Master’s education expands access to global and interdisciplinary knowledge while enhancing professional competence locally without requiring overseas mobility. In practice, access to these educational programs remains challenging due to high costs, English-medium instruction requirements, urban concentration and information barriers. This study examines youth climate actors’ aspirations and their perceived barriers to accessing internationalised Master’s education related to sustainable development. Using a multiphase mixed-methods design, the study analyses collected data from 117 valid questionnaires, six in-depth interviews, and one focused group discussion. Findings show that participants seek globally informed, locally applicable knowledge, interdisciplinary capacity, professional legitimacy, and collective action networks for sustained climate work and policy engagement. Meanwhile, perceived barriers include limited access to program information, inflexible formats, the limited affordability of tuition fees, scholarship uncertainty, high language requirements, and limited recognition of climate-related experience in admissions. The article argues that internationalised Master’s education should be evaluated not solely in terms of its scale of expansion, but also in terms of the extent to which intended learners can identify, access, and apply what they have learned meaningfullyto sustainable development practice.