VIETNAM—EDUCATION SYSTEM

Since Vietnam was occupied by China between 111 BCE and 939 CE, the

Vietnamese education system was initially developed resembling the Chinese hierarchic
Confucian examination system. This system mainly served for the recruitment of loyal
civil servants, who were trained according to Confucian morals and ethics. The main
educational content of the system was taken from the Chinese Five Classics (Yi jing, or
Classic of Changes; Shu jing, or Classic of History; Li ji, or Book of Rites; Shi jing, or
Classic of Poetry; and Chunqiu, or Spring and Autumn Annals), and the Confucian Four
Books (Da xue, or Great Teaching; Zhong yong, or Doctrine of the Mean; the Analects,
and Mengzi, or Mencius.) However, Mahayana Buddhism also had some important
influence on the system.

Because the Vietnamese language originally lacked its own script, the civil-service
examination system used Chinese characters as a teaching and learning medium.
During the thirteenth century, Vietnamese scholars developed the first national script
system (nom), which, while based on Chinese characters, was built around the
Vietnamese pronunciation of words. However, this script did not spread among the
common population, because it demanded extensive knowledge of written Chinese. In
the sixteenth century, Christian Portuguese and French missionaries arrived in Vietnam
and later developed the currently used quoc ngu script, which uses Latin alphabet with
diacritical signs. During colonial occupation, the French proclaimed Vietnamese, written
in quoc ngu, and French the two official languages.

EDUCATION IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD

After several changes, the colonial education system eventually comprised three years
of elementary school (certificat d'études élémentaire indigène), three years of primary
school (certificat d'études primaires franco-indigène), four years of complementary
primary school (diplôme d'études primaires supérieurs franco indigène), and three years
of secondary school (baccalauréat local). Serving the extensive needs of the colonial
government for low-paid civil servants, the colonial education system focused on
practical training and on the acquisition of the French language. In addition, although
the final official Confucian examinations were held in 1918, during most of the colonial
period traditional Confucian instruction continued to exist, as did Buddhist education,
provided for future monks.

EDUCATION IN THE TWO VIETNAMS

During the separation of the country between 1954 and 1975, two different education
systems developed. In the North, President Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) launched large
literacy campaigns that were highly successful. Educational reforms were aimed at
establishing a socialist education system, modeled on the Soviet model. The school
system was composed of nine (later ten) years of schooling in total (4-3-2, later 4-3-3).
Various vocational secondary schools and training centers developed that provided
personnel for lower-level careers in the state sector. Higher education was provided by
highly specialized, small-enrollment universities, polytechnical universities, and
colleges. Postgraduate education was mainly conducted in the Soviet Union, East
Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Education was organized by five- and one-year
state plans and served the national demand for qualified labor. After
graduation, students were directly transferred to diverse positions in the state sector.

In the South, a twelve-year system was promoted by the government. Vocational

secondary schools, vocational training centers, and on-the-job trainingPage 66  |  Top of
Articleopportunities were established to serve the labor market. Universities such as the
universities of Saigon and Can Tho, as well as colleges, developed on the American
model.

EDUCATION AFTER REUNIFICATION

Vietnam was reunified in 1975, and the third education reform was initiated in 1979.
Efforts were undertaken to unify the two different school systems and to establish a
national education system according to the principles of free education for all,
polytechnical education following the socialist model, and priority for socialist ideology
and practical work in all teaching curricula. This brought about the closing of
approximately 2,500 private educational establishments in the South. Higher-education
students were selected according to their personal curriculum vitae and social origin,
and student exchange programs were almost exclusively organized with countries from
Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Foreign-language teaching focused on Russian
and German.

Since the official promulgation of the doi moi ("renovation") reform policy program in

1986 the national education system has adapted to new circumstances. Today it is
composed of the following components: public kindergarten establishments, which
serve children from three months to four years, public preschools for children of at least
five years of age, public primary schools for children between six and ten (five years'
duration), public lower secondary schools for children between eleven and fourteen
(four years' duration), vocational training centers at lower secondary level (under one
year's duration), upper secondary schools for students between fifteen and seventeen,
secondary vocational schools at the upper secondary level (three to four years'
duration), secondary technical schools at upper secondary level (three to four years'
duration), and vocational training centers at upper secondary level (one to two years'
duration). In addition, different opportunities for on-thejob training courses are offered by
the labor market. Higher education is composed of universities (three to six years'
duration) and colleges (two to four years' duration). Written and oral examinations are
held to transfer pupils from one level to the next, and final examinations after grade 12
are followed by entrance examinations to universities and colleges. Postgraduate
education consists of master and doctoral programs.

When the Sixth Party Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party liberalized the
economy and proclaimed more market-oriented reform measures, one of the immediate
consequences was a decline in education at all levels. Income-raising opportunities
forced people to decide between children's contribution to the family income or
education. In addition, there were educational reform measures, which reflected the
overall transition to a multisector economy. The reform measures can be grouped into
five categories: the diversification of financial resources, efforts to internationalize the
education system through reform of the structural organization of higher education, the
withdrawal of the state-promoted plans for the decentralization of decision making in
Vietnamese education, an overall increase in legal documents accompanying the
transformation and culminating in the promulgation of the first national education law in
1999, and methods of encouraging the development of educational elites, which
resulted in the reestablishment of schools and classes for especially gifted students.

These transformation processes were paralleled by trends among the general public.
The trends include making extensive efforts and investment to gain additional
instruction and preparation for their offspring to improve their chances for a future
career (including sacrifices to allow their children to study overseas in other Southeast
Asian nations, Australia, the United States, and Europe); educational stratification
resulting from the overall differentiation of income structures, especially between urban
and rural areas; reorientation of students in their choices of disciplines (preferences for
English, Chinese, communication technology, computer sciences, law, economics,
public administration, and so forth); a change in values and increased popularity of
diplomas and certificates; and brain drain from higher education toward higherpaying
jobs in the developing market economy.

Ursula Nguyen