4 - Market-oriented Education: Private (People-Founded) Upper-Secondary Schools in Hanoi

Summary

This chapter concerns the private provision of education in Vietnam. Specifically, it examines the activities of private (people-founded) secondary schools in Hanoi as they strive to respond to and benefit from emerging market demand. People-founded schools refer to a particular type of “non-public” school permitted under Vietnam's law, while the term “marketoriented education” refers to education that operates under, and is responsive to, market rules — such as competition, price, and demand.

The chapter is in three sections. The first section discusses the liberalization of education that has accompanied Vietnam's transition from central planning to a “socialist-oriented market economy”. It reports trends in the private provision of education at various levels, critically examines “New Education” (a buzzword that I use to refer to education that simultaneously meets the requirements of the market economy while remaining faithful to socialist ideals), and considers the challenges various kinds of “private” or “non-public” schools in Vietnam face in light of international experience and theoretical literature on organizations and adaptation in market economies. The second section reports results from case studies of two private secondary schools in Hanoi and their efforts to adapt school operations to changing demand. The final section draws lessons from these and other schools' experiences and suggests ways private schools may improve their adaptability to Vietnam's growing market economy.

In only a short period, the scale of private education has increased dramatically. However, the experience of private education providers has been mixed. Overall, I argue that many school principals in Vietnam are responding to market demands with increasing sophistication. After only a few years of operation, principals of some schools have devised new management arrangements, achieved notable success in overcoming people's poor view of private schools, and increased their ability to recruit students as well as improve the quality of teaching. Some private schools have proven especially effective in responding to the challenges and opportunities internationalization and globalization present, particularly as this affects the content of curricular and extra-curricular activities.