At the age of 29, Luu Minh Hien is now the owner of the two English centres in Da Nang. This fruitful result has been mainly attributed to his ceaseless efforts in enhancing his English skills, and his determination to help young people to study English in a more effective manner.

An English class at the WISE Centre

Located on Ham Nghi and Hoang Dieu streets, Mr Hien’s WISE English centres have been becoming trusted addresses for many young people, especially for those who want to study for taking the IELTS Academic tests.

IELTS is the world's most popular English language test for those wanting to study in higher education in an English-speaking country.

Starting its operation in early 2018, the WISE English centres have had 20 classes with nearly 300 students and 10 teachers in total.

Mr Hien said he was not good at English while he was studying at the Le Quy Don Senior High School for Gifted Pupils.

As being a Year 11 pupil, he met a group of foreign tourists who asked for directions to Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street. Despite all of his all efforts, he couldn’t speak English fluently, and as a result, the foreigners couldn’t understand what he said. Since then, he has determined to learn English harder and sought interesting and suitable methods to improve his English skills.

After graduating from the senior high school, the studious boy received scholarships to have Bachelor's and Master's degrees in the UK.

After finishing his studies in the UK, Mr Hien came back home and opened IELTS classes at home.

In January 2018, his first WISE English centre was opened on Ham Nghi Street in Thanh Khe District.

The first days of his startup were so difficult because his wife was pregnant the first time and he was working full-time at another company. After several months of operation, his company faced personnel problems as his employees quitted their jobs.

Therefore, Mr Hien decided to quit his current job and poured all his enthusiasm into his start-up company. He said, from this incident, he understood that people are the most important factor for a business. Hence, he started to learn about human resource management work by himself, and participated in training courses on human resource management organised by the city’s branch of the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The young boss revealed that he planned to open an English centre for kids (WISE Kids) and a soft skills centre for teenagers (WISE Skills) in the future.

“My dream is to help young Vietnamese people not only be good at English but also have presentation and critical thinking skills in a bid to prepare for their further independent living, work or study”, Hien added.