Current Educational Priorities and Concerns

The highest national priority is given to education in science and technology. Education and training are considered the necessary foundations and active factors for assuring successful implementation of State socio-economic objectives, national construction and defense.

The Resolution on Continued Renovation of Education and Training was approved at the Fourth Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam held in January 1993. This Resolution highlighted the assessment of education development over the past ten years and set forth the guidelines, policies, strategies and measures for further developments. The guidelines consisted in the following:

• Education is the driving force and the basic condition for realizing socio-economic objectives. Investment in education is considered as one of the principal directions of investment for development.
• The realization of educational objectives means improving people’s knowledge, training the workforce and nurturing talent. In education, it is necessary at the same time to enhance equity, excellence and efficiency.
• Education should respond to the demand for national development and follow the progressive trends of our time such as continuing education and lifelong learning.
• Diversifying education and training. The Government should have specific policies to create favourable conditions for those who are under the government’s care as well as poor people to enable them to learn.

The following policies, strategies and measures to develop education and training in the country were also included in the Resolution:

• Improvement of the structure of the national education system, especially at the higher education level; upgrading public schools and encouraging the establishment of semi-public schools as well as private schools at the pre-primary, vocational and higher education levels.
• Rearrangement of the education system, especially as far as universities and colleges are concerned, linking these institutions to scientific research institutes. Setting up of centres of excellence at all levels of education.
• By the year 2000, eradicating illiteracy for those in the age group 15-35 years and universalizing primary education for children in the age group 6-14.
• Setting up a secondary education system in which general education is closely linked to vocational education; differentiation between secondary education  programmes.
• Expansion of vocational education by developing vocational schools, classes and centres and other forms of vocational training.
• Rational expansion of higher education and development of master’s and doctoral degree programmes.
• Redefinition of education and training objectives, revision of curricula, and improvement of teaching and training methods at all levels.
• Promotion of research and application of scientific and technological progress, including educational research.
• Consolidation and development of education among ethnic minorities and in disadvantaged areas.
• Strengthening of party and government leadership with regard to education; increasing the share of educational expenditure in the government budget and mobilizing other funding resources for education and training.
• Improving the qualifications of teaching staff and educational administrators.

The tasks for the coming years were defined as follows:

• to continue renewing, stabilizing and improving the quality of education and training;
• to pay attention to the quality of political and ethical education for pupils and students;
• to modernize to a certain extent the content and methods of education and to democratize school and educational management;
• to diversify the forms of training and the types of school;
• to establish step by step semi-public schools, people’s schools and private schools and develop study-and-work schools;
• to expand vocational training to nurture more and more people well-versed in science, technology, business, economic and social management, as well as a growing pool of skilled workers in order to raise the cultural, scientific and technical levels of the working population;
• to consolidate and stabilize the existing system of pre-school establishments and classes;
• to concentrate efforts on achieving a programme of compulsory primary education and combating of illiteracy;
• to develop lower and upper secondary education in accordance with the needs and conditions of the economy;
• to consolidate and develop general education schools for handicapped children;
• to restructure universities, high schools and secondary vocational schools;
• to rationally increase the range of university education and to expand post-graduate education and raise its quality;
• to continue amending regulations governing school enrolment and scholarships; 
• to improve educational research and experimentation;
• to institutionalize the structure of the national education system;
• to increase investment in education in mountainous regions and areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, expand boarding schools, and work out a scheme for the training of state employees and intellectuals with an ethnic minority origin. 

The Resolution on Directions of Education Development in the Industrialization and Modernization Period was approved at the Second Plenum of the Central Committee (Term VIII) of the Communist Party of Vietnam held in December 1996. This Resolution has set forth the guiding principles, policies, strategies and measures for further development of education. The main guidelines are as follows: 

• Education is the highest national priority; investment in education is considered as one of the principal directions of investment for development.
• Education is the concern of the Party, the Government and all People.
• Educational development plans have to meet the demands of socio-economic development, and scientific and technological progress.

The goals of the national education programme for the 1997-2000 period and until the year 2020 are the following:

• To eradicate illiteracy and universalize primary education in the year 2000, lower secondary education in 2010, and secondary education in 2020.
• To consolidate and develop education among ethnic minorities and in disadvantaged areas.
• To develop the system of teacher-training institutions and to improve the qualifications of teaching staff and educational administrators.
• To improve the material base of educational institutions.

During the period 1996-2000, the development and pilot implementation of the National Curriculum of Basic Education (primary and lower secondary education) has been organized. On 9 December 2000, the National Assembly issued a directive aimed at revising the curriculum for general education, specifying that the new basic education curriculum will be implemented throughout the country from the school year 2002/03. The objectives of this revision are: to enhance the quality of all-round education for the young generation; to respond to the need of developing human resources for the industrialization and modernization of the country; and to approach the general education level of the developed countries in the region and the world.