1 - Contemporary Vietnam's Education System: Historical Roots, Current Trends

Summary

Over the last two decades Vietnam has experienced profound changes in all manner of its social institutions. This volume of essays examines developments in the sphere of education. Broadly understood, education refers to social activities that impart knowledge, skills, or morality. Education can thus take place in innumerable guises and settings. The essays in this volume are focused on Vietnam's education system, understood as the entire set of processes and institutions that govern formal schooling, training, and research activities in Vietnam, and their social and educational outcomes.

The historical lineages of education in Vietnam stretch back over a thousand years. The country has had an organized education system for more than 500 years. Regional differences in education systems that emerged in (what is today) Vietnam in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the associated politics of education during this period are equally if not more important for understanding education in contemporary Vietnam. In macrohistorical terms, major influences on education in Vietnam include the development and incomplete decay of Confucian institutions, colonialism and anti-colonial struggle, post-colonial state formation, twentieth century wars, the development and subsequent erosion of state-socialist institutions and, most recently, the development of a state-dominated market economy within a Leninist political framework. Against such a varied and complex historical backdrop, the last two decades is a small bit of time indeed. And yet, changes in Vietnam's education since the late 1980s have been momentous, both reflecting and effecting broader social change.

The publication of this volume comes at a time when Vietnam's education system is at a crossroads. Rapid economic growth over two decades has permitted unprecedented increases in the scale and scope of formal schooling. And yet there is a prevailing sense that Vietnam's current education system is inadequate to the country's needs. These are not abstract concerns. Education is not a stand alone sector but a major institution that functions and develops interdependently with other major institutions. What happens in Vietnam's education system has broad implications for social life in the country.