Vietnam's education and training development strategy till 2010
Vietnam's education and training development strategy till 2010
Introduction
Education and training play an essential role in the preservation, development and continuation of human civilization. In the era of scientific and technological revolution nowadays, education and training are becoming the main motive force for the developmental acceleration and considered as a determining factor for the success or failure of a nation in international competitions and for the success of each individual in his life. Thus, the Government and people of every nation highly appreciate the role of education and training.
In Vietnam, Article 35 of the current Constitution (issued in 1992) stipulates: Education is the first priority of the national policy. The Second Plenary Session of the Central Party Standing Committee VIII has issued the Resolution on the strategic orientation for the development of education and training during the period of industrialization and modernization.
Article 86 of the Education law stipulates the framework of governmental management of education, including firstly the formulating and guiding, scheming and planning strategy and policy for educational development.
Therefore, Vietnamese Government, in pace with other socio-economic development strategies, has planned a strategy to year 2010 with steps to year 2005 for the national education and training development, which is stipulated in Chapter II of the Education Law.
Education and training strategy plays a very important part in human resources development strategy. Manpower with good knowledge is the most important resource of the modern industry. Thus, to improve the quality of human resources is the main conditions for the economic growth and social development. We are developing the strategy for education and training development while the country is step by step integrating into the world. However, while the developed countries have achieved high level of development in science and technology and they are moving forward a knowledge economy and an information society, Vietnam is still a backward agricultural country with narrow land, big population and a few natural resources. Therefore, education and training strategy must be the key to narrow such a gap, push up the industrialization and modernization, make the economy grow and improve the people's living standards. Education and training strategy must bring into play the good tradition of Vietnamese education. It must on the one hand enhance the achievements and on the other hand overcome the weaknesses of the 15 years of renovation in consistence with the world trend and prospective in several coming decades.
The objectives and solutions to education and training development strategy in the coming period must thus respond to the needs of highly qualified manpower, improving the quality of the laborers, creating learning desire for young generation and teaching them how to have lifelong learning, helping them gain the creative ability and adaptability to the changes in their careers as well as in social environment. All educational levels have to implement education for full development of personality in terms of characteristics and capability intellect and emotion, health and sense of beauty, improving the love for the country and socialism, building the will to make the nation prosper.
In order to achieve the above mentioned requirements, the strategy for education and training development to the year 2010 has been based on the current situation of education and training, the context, opportunities and challenges to education and training in the next few decades. On this basis, it will identify realistic objectives and feasible solutions to a firm and stable development of education and training responding to the demands of industrialization and modernization as well as the permanent development of the Vietnamese human resources and the country.
CURRENT SITUATION OF VIETNAMESE EDUCATION & TRAINING
· Achievements
After 15 years of Doi moi ( Renovation), our country's education and training cause has been expanded and developed. People's knowledge level and human resource quality have been improved, specifically:
- Diversify different types of schools, classes and educational modes, including all types of public and non-public, formal and non-formal education. The school network covers almost all residential areas providing convenience to the learners. Education for ethnic minority people has made some positive changes.
There have been more than 100 boarding ethnic minority schools.
- The educational size is increasing rapidly. At present, nearly 94% of the population of 15 years of age or over are literate. All of provinces and cities have achieved the national standard for illiteracy eradication and primary education universalization. Some advantaged cities and provinces have been progressing to the universalization of lower secondary education. The average number of years attending schools for the population reaches 7.3. There are 117 students per 10,000 people in the academic year of 1999-2000. About 8 million laborers who make up 18.3% of total 43.8 million laborers nationwide have been trained.
- The knowledge level and new knowledge access ability have been increasingly improved in a part of students. The number of secondary students who win national and international awards in several subjects has been increased. This confirms that the talents out of our country's students are in great numbers. A number of university and college graduates have their ambitions of training themselves into honest persons and making their living and their spirits of being independent and active. Several fields of basic and technology sciences has improved their training quality.
- The socialization of education has brought preliminary results. There is a widespread movement of learning in the whole nation, especially in information technology and foreign languages. The social forces are involved more and more actively in encouraging children to attend schools, building school infrastructure and contributing financial resources to education and training under various five forms. The rate of students in non-public units/institutions is increasing (in the school-year 1999-2000, this accounted for 51% of pre-school children, 0.3% of primary children, 3.5% of lower secondary students, 33.9% of upper secondary students and 13% of higher education students).
Thanks to the education and training achievements and other social policies, the Human Development Index (HDI) of our country in the classification table of UNDP has raised considerably in the last 10 years. For instance, from 0.456 ranked at position 121st in 1990, it went up to 0.671, positioned at 108th out of 174 countries in 2000. Compared to the economic development index (GDP per capita), HDI has gone up by 24 levels.
These achievements are due to our people's fondness for and dedication to studying. Vietnamese families care for their children's studying. A large number of students make their great efforts in their studying and training. The majority of teaching staff are dedicated to their careers, especially those working in the mountainous and remote areas who have overcome difficulties and hardship to fulfil their tasks. The Party and Government have issued positive policies on educational development.
The Resolutions of the VII and VIII Party's Congresses and 1992 Constitution confirm that education is the first priority of the national policies. The 4th Central Committee Session of the VII Term and the 2nd Central Committee Session of the VIII Term have laid down the immediate tasks and long-term orientations for education and training development. The Education Law which was approved in the 4th Session of the National Assembly's Xth term (December 1998) sets a legal framework for further development of education and training in coming period.
During the transition period, education and training sector has made some appropriate policies such as finalizing education and training objectives on the aspects of social and personality development, the reform of system structure and operational mechanism so that they are in line with the short-term conditions and the preparation for the future, the diversification of education and training modes and funding sources, the mobilization of the society's involvement into the education and training development, the creation of opportunities for more learners including at higher education level, the democratization of education and training activities and strengthening the exchanges and cooperation with other countries and international organizations.
The political stability and achievements in economic development and people's living standard improvement gained from the transition period have made a sudden increase of the learning demands and gradually improved the conditions as well as created an advantaged environment for education and training development.
· Weaknesses
Although having gained certain achievements, our country's education and training sector has still not caught up with the requirements of socio-economic development and shown its weaknesses in a number of aspects:
- The quality of education at all levels is still low. The teaching, learning and
assessments and evaluation are mainly for the purpose of driving learners to mechanical memory, paying little attention to training independent and creative thinking abilities and applying knowledge and skills into real life. In order to be successful in the examinations, learners have to take extra lessons inside and outside schools which cost a lot of time, energy and money without bringing realistic benefits. The physical conditions of most of students are usually weak but are not paid much attention to improve. The stressful learning activities and examinations right from the very low level of those students make them have little time for entertainment, playing games and physical training. Teaching staff are insufficient in numbers, inconsistent in structure and low in quality. Part of the teaching staff is under qualified and has poor personal virtue. The majority of teachers still use very old and out-of-dated teaching and educational methods which are heavy on imparting knowledge and do not emphasize on training students the independent and creative thinking methods as well as right attitudes towards learning and life. In pre-school and general education, there is the shortage of teachers at some levels, in several regions and some subjects like foreign languages, music, art and physical education. There is a critical lack of university lecturers and technical teachers, especially at universities where there will be a risk of shortage of highly qualified lecturers in the next few years. The capacity of practical training for students is very weak. The curricula and textbooks are heavy on theory, insufficient in application knowledge and practical skills, inadequate in training thinking methodologies and do not make their active contributions to the formulation and development of necessary abilities for people in real life.
- The effectiveness of educational activities is low. The rate of graduates at the end of each educational level in comparison with the initial enrolment is low, especially in mountainous, remote and isolated areas. (In the school year 1998-1999 this rate at primary level was 69.6%, lower secondary level 68.8% and upper secondary level 86.0%). General education graduates are usually confused when entering real life. There is not a match between university and vo-tech training with labor market. A considerable number of graduates do not have their jobs which are appropriate with their studying fields or they do not want to work in places where they are wanted. The graduate's adaptability to labor market is poor.
- The manpower training structure is not reasonable in terms of qualifications, careers and regions. The learners see that there is only one way to go, that is to continue with studying in universities, that the choice to study in vo-tech training institutions at other levels is still limited. Learners are not provided with sufficient information to choose their future careers. The increase of training size in higher education is mainly dominated by learners' taste and does not orientate towards society's demands. The region- and studying field-based allocation of technical and university students is not appropriate with the objective needs and thus it causes the fact that those areas and fields experience the redundancy and shortage unevenly. There haven't been effective solutions to human resource training with a view to enhancing competitive capacities of the economy, rural development and serving for economic and labor structure transition.
- The social equity in education has not been carried out sufficiently. The gap in educational development between regions in the country has not been narrowed yet. Education and training in remote and isolated areas and for ethnic minority people is still facing difficulties. There have not been effective measures to support the poor but willing-to-learn students to pursue their study.
- Some negative and undisciplinary phenomena in education are not prevented promptly namely: the widespread extra tuition and learning which are not for the learners' benefits but teachers' incomes, increasing in the enrolment size in order to increase the income without taking into consideration of conditions for quality assurance and unstrict implementation of the training rules and regulations. The phenomena of buying qualifications, selling marks, budget collection and spending without rules badly influence on schools' and teachers' prestige.
Among students, cheating in the examinations is still common. Heavy and energy-consuming assessments with unreliable and unfair results put negative impacts on the learners' personality and their working attitudes in the future.
This is shown most obviously in the university entrance examinations. The examinations do not inherit the previous studying process and neither do they ensure the selection of appropriate students for further training.
A part of trained graduates is incapable, lacks of sense of honest spirits and responsibility for their products, does not respect the technical process, embezzles and wastes raw materials and lacks working cooperation and healthy competition spirits.
· Causes of the weaknesses
- In education and training management: In the period when Vietnam is transitioning from a central command economy into a market one, education and training sector has been slow in development strategic directions and macro policies to approximately deal with some big correlation in education and training such as supply-demand, cost-benefit, centralization-decentralization etc and confused in providing guidance on several specific polices. It does not address very well the relations between quantity and quality in education and between the diversification of educational delivery modes and the improvement of assessment and monitoring to ensure quality and efficiency. It also does not combine and use effectively the State's and society's resources for education and training. Some renovation policies have been carried out without adequate bases and experienced both implementation and finalization at the same time which causes the instability in education and training and puzzle in the society. Legal documents for State management of education and training have not been issued promptly. Educational inspection activities have been so weak.
The capacity of the education and training managers at all levels does not catch up with the reality of education and training development, especially the diversification and complexity of educational activities in the transition period. Some managers are at times affected by their personal benefits and thus do harm to the common ones with bureaucratic and ordering styles.
Educational science theories, especially issues related to developmental philosophy, education and training methodologies and management have not been thoroughly studied and applied promptly with a view to directing and meeting the practical activities.
- In socio-economic aspect: Vietnam is still a poor country with low GDP per capita, insufficient financial resources, infrastructure and equipment while the social needs for education and training are rapidly increasing. The fact that the country is shifting to a market economy and implementing open door polices is now changing social value scales. The new values have not been firmly and stably formulated to be able to orientate the personality development of learners.
The negative phenomena arising in the society have great impact on the education in schools. The difficulties in the improvements of administrative, economic, financial management, labor use and salary payment etc have been barriers to thorough solutions to specific problems of education and training.
In 15 years of renovation, Vietnamese education and training which has made a number of efforts and achieved initial changes has created some necessary factors for future development. Nevertheless, it is facing weaknesses and difficulties in many aspects and needs to make strong movements and basic changes in the new context.
CONTEXT, OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES TO VIETNAMESE EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN THE NEXT FEW DECADES
International context
· The acceleration of modern scientific and technological revolution and the formulation of knowledge economy and information society
The revolution of modern science and technology which started in mid 19th century is increasingly developing with its lightning steps. The applications of scientific and technological achievements has rapidly and deeply the society's physical and spiritual life. Science has become a direct and core production force. It is the basic motive force for socio-economic development. The way from science to technology and production is shortening. The higher technology is, the greater knowledge content is. The development of information technology and automation has changed the correlation between direct and indirect labor in the direction of reducing manual labor and increasing intellect labor and putting the role of science and technology and education and training research activities into the first position.
The achievements of scientific and technological revolution have led to a direct consequence of the formation of knowledge economy. Instead of the natural resource- and labor-based production, knowledge economy will mainly rely on people knowledge. Knowledge economy will change the economic and labor structure. Labor in industrial and agricultural production will reduce and that in service and office areas will increase. Knowledge enterprises will be set up with mainly their white-collar workers.
Together with elemental development of information technology and other related areas, an information societywhich bases on the national and global information infrastructure is being formed. In the information society, traditionally organizational structures in the pyramid shape with very strict top-down order which are normally cumbersome and bureaucratic will be replaced by a network organizational structure in which creative people are placed at the central position next to advantaged conditions in order to maximize their intellect abilities.
· The trend of globalization
The widespread application of modern technologies is speeding up the globalization process.
In terms of economy, a non-border economy is being formed. 'Micro' economic structures (i.e. enterprises, national economy) are being linked with the 'macro' system which is global economy. Many multi-national companies have been established and are playing their increasingly decisive roles in the development of the world economy. Foreign investment and international trade are mushrooming. Especially, thanks to e-commerce, household economy and small businesses can be linked with global market. The circulation of investment capital and money across borders has helped the world resources allocate and combine effectively.
Regarding culture, communication means, telecom networks and Internet as well as population movements facilitate the cultural exchanges and integration among nations. A hard struggle is taking place in order to preserve the weak cultures before the danger of stronger ones' assimilation. International Committee on Education for 21st century remarked 'The current people are experiencing stunned feeling when they are torn between the globalization which they are witnessing and being affected on the one hand and a trace of the original identity on the other hand'. To overcome such situation, the Committee has recommended 4 core issues of education among which there is one on learning to live together.
The globalization process requires human beings to together put efforts to address global issueswhich relate to the existence and non-existence of not only an individual, a social class or a nation. Those are the issues of peace keeping, war and racial/religious conflict avoidance, environment protection, limiting the population explosion, AIDS, drug and criminal prevention. Education and training plays its key role in raising the awareness and sense of responsibility of present and future generations to together address those common issues.
National context
· To push up industrialization and modernization of Vietnam
The VIII Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party has asserted that, on the basis of two strategic tasks of building socialism and defending the country, we will have to make efforts, from now to the year 2020, to help our country basically become an industrial one with modern technical infrastructure, appropriate economic structure, advanced production relationship which is in line with the developmental level of the production force, high level of material and spiritual life, unshakeable national defense and security, wealthy people, powerful nation and a democratic, just and civilized society.
The overall target of the economic development in the coming 10 years is to reach over 7% of the annual GDP growth rate which will stay stable in a long period. By 2010, GDP will increase at least twice in comparison with that of the year 2000.
The savings rate drawn from the internal economy will reach 30%. To achieve this, industrialization and modernization needs to be accelerated. In terms of production aspect, there will be a basic shift from using mainly manual labor to using advanced technology and modern production tools and control system. In terms of social aspect, our country will gain a number of modern and common civilized values of human beings nowadays, ensuring conditions for sustainable development for both nature and people.
Our country's industrialization and modernization implementation has been carried out with the starting point from an agricultural country with 76% of the population living in rural areas (1999 census) and agricultural production accounted for some 26% of GDP (1998). During industrialization process, there will be a basic shift in the economic and labor structure in the direction that the share of agriculture, forestry and fishery in GDP will go down to 16-17% by 2010 while increasing the share of industry 40-41% and of services to 42-43%. By 2010, the ratio of agricultural labor force will be decreased to 50% and of industrial and constructional labor will make up 24% and service labor 26%.
In the process of industrialization and modernization, modern and high technologies will be used in the key fields. On the other hand, those technologies which require small investment and attract intensive labor will also be widely used to create more jobs, especially for redundant laborers in rural areas. Education and training system is responsible for training manpower to use modern technologies and also manpower for traditional technologies in order to change labor structure. The service area will also require training more and more laborers.
· To consistently formulate a socialist-oriented market economy in our country
The industrialization and modernization and infrastructure construction process in our country has been carried out in the condition of experiencing the existence of a variety of ownership patterns and economic components which operate in the light of market mechanism.
When goods production system is developing, labor market is established. Learners will bear a part of education and training fees if they see the possibility of returns when entering the labor market later on. Therefore, learners, families and education and training institutions have to face with the cost-benefits problem. If that problem is solved correctly, it will create motive force for development. However, the transition process in our country is still continuing in the immediate time and the market mechanism has not been finalized yet. Thus, values received from training have not been accurately evaluated, appropriately used and reasonably paid. In the market economy, economic effectiveness has been highly appreciated and therefore money has been of public manifestation and had a direct impact on the formation of value system. All of those have a determining influence on the learning motivation, career choice and the relationships inside schools and society. Therefore, in the process of synchronous establishment of socialist-oriented market economy mechanisms, the State is responsible for orienting education and training development in both macro aspect such as development investment, strategy planning and implementation assessment and monitoring as well as in micro one such as giving orientation to the development of learner personality.
The development of market economy and free competition have classified the rich and poor and borne a risk of increasing inequalities in opportunities to receive education and training. The State should have regulating policies to narrow the gaps among social classes, regions and residential communities and ensure the provision of basic education for everyone as a part of people's welfare.
· Opportunities and challenges to Vietnamese education and training
The international and national development contexts have placed our country's education and training in front of great opportunities and challenges.
Opportunities
- The acceleration of modern scientific and technological revolution and formulation of knowledge economy and information society in the coming decades as well as the cause of industrialization and modernization to be taken in the first 20 years of 21st century are placing requirements and facilitating the development of education and training.
- Our country has plentiful young human resources that have abilities to quickly acquire scientific and technological knowledge and skills and potential of intellect development etc in accordance with present requirements of labor force and social organization and management methods. Vietnamese education and training has its opportunities to provide people and labor force with appropriate knowledge, skills and attitudes and to turn population burden into an advantage for development.
- The process of international integration of economy, culture and other activities is a new opportunity for our country's education and training to meet regional and international standards and promote the rapid improvements of human resource quality as well as at the same time create additional resources of information, specialists, finance to quickly improve national education and training qualifications and narrow the gaps with advanced countries.
Challenges
- Challenges caused by national economic situation
A big challenge to our country's education and training is the poverty and national backward economy. GDP per capita only reached about US$400 (in 2000) and therefore investment in education and training per capita is too low (US$11 per capita in 1998 and this equals to approximately 1/100 of that in Japan). The risk of falling behind in terms of economic development and lack of conditions for the development of other social fields is still high. Economic institutions and social management order that was formed in the subsidiary period still continue to cause barriers to the development of education and training, especially the human resource training.
- Challenges in social development
Together with economic growth, there is a risk of increased unemployment, the rich and poor gaps between social classes and regions, more seriously polluted environment, widespread social evils, little attention to the preservation and promotion of national cultural identity and the strong competition of outside digitized and network-based cultures. Education and training therefore must contribute to overcoming the challenges of inequalities between economic growth and social development and environment protection.
- Challenges to the continuation of stronger renovation and keeping relative
stability of education and training
Education and training is required to experience strong and basic reforms to respond to demands of the era and country in the coming time. On the other hand, our country's education and training nowadays has become a broad and sensitive social activity that has its impact on tens of million people and will place a long-term influence on a number of socio-economic fields. Therefore, its is needed to be very careful to carry out reforms. The task of both keeping relative stability and needed reform implementation is a great challenge to our country's education and training in the coming decades.
The 20th century marked the path of our people's miserably hard but glorious struggle to maintain our Fatherland's independence, freedom and unification and move forward to socialism. Entering the 21st century, our country is facing vital challenges. The world is now moving forward like a lightning in the aspects of material and spiritual production. Knowledge economy and information society are being formed while Vietnam is still left behind in many aspects: it is an agricultural country with narrow land but big population, low productivity, GDP per capita and investment in all areas which are tens of times lower than average countries and hundreds of times lower than the advanced ones. Aiming at overcoming those challenges, Vietnam needs to make use of its basic advantage which is human resources. Our people have a tradition of patriotism, studiousness, fondness for and dedication to learning and abilities to absorb and create science and technology. Our country's education and training must bring into play the intellectual potential of the whole nation in order to overcome present vital challenges and risks of falling behind and catch up with developmental pace as well as come up with other countries in the world.
VIEWPOINTS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATION & TRAINING
In the next few decades, the development of our country's education and training follows the following guiding viewpoints:
· Education and training is the first priority of the national policy
It has been deeply realized that education and training, together with science and technology, is the determining factor for economic growth and social development.
Thus, investment in education is considered as development investment. Education and training should be given favorable conditions to develop one step ahead to meet the socio-economic development of the country and the trend of international integration. Priority polices on education and training, especially investment and salary ones should be implemented. Leadership at all levels should place education and training plan in the central position of the socio-economic plan.
· Building socialist education
To build socialist education with people, national, scientific, modern characteristics and taking Marxist-Leninist's and Hochiminh's ideologies as bases. Education and training plays a leading role in formulating citizens and laborers with their love for the country and consciousness of the socialism. We should also carry out social equity in education and training and create opportunities for everyone to pursue their learning. We should ensure learning opportunities for the children of families having great contributions to the country and help poor students, disabled and ethnic minority people. The education and training gaps among regions and residential communities should be narrowed.
· Education and training development in connection with the demands of socio-economic development, scientific and technological progresses and defense and security strengthening
Educational development attaches much importance to all three aspects: size, quality and effectiveness. There must be linkages between education and production and scientific research, theory and reality and learning and practice. We should make use of information technology achievements to change education and training organization as well as teaching methods which help our country quickly catch up with knowledge economy and globalization process. Education and training makes its contributions to ensuring country's internal security and stability before the risks of external invasion.
· Education and training is the cause of the Party, State and the whole
nation: to link school-based with family- and society-based education and promote educational socialization
To create a learning society in which everyone learns, learns continuously and all his/her life. Promote the learning tradition of each family, each organization, each locality and the whole nation. Everyone takes care of education. The Party committees at all levels, authorities, unions, economic and social organizations, families and individuals are all responsible for making active contributions to the cause of education and training development and the resources for education and training. To link school-based with family- and society-based education and create a healthy education environment everywhere, in every organization and community.
OBJECTIVES FOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEVELOPMENT TILL 2010
In order to accomplish its mission to the country, our country's education and training has to achieve the following objectives:
In order to accomplish its mission to the country, our country's education and training has to achieve the following objectives:
· Overall objectives
Provide education and training for all-round people who have comprehensive development, love their country, have their socialist ideals, make active contributions to the cause of country industrialization and modernization, have fondness for learning and capacity of life-long learning, master modern science and technology, are aware of and have ability of cooperation, have sense of responsibility for social communities and natural environment and have healthy way of living and good health.
To expand the size in parallel with pay much attention to education and training quality and usage efficiency, meet the intermediate and long-term human resource demands of the industrialization and modernization cause, foster the talented, raise people's knowledge level, meet the learning demands of every people's class and move toward a learning society.
Strongly development the national education system and school/class network, upgrade school infrastructure and equipment, create essential and comprehensive shift in terms of curricula, content and education and training methodologies, consolidate and strengthen the teaching and managerial staff, establish some education and training institutions with international and regional standards, gradually apply information technology into education and training, facilitate many secondary schools to provide their students with full-day schooling and Internet access and set up a system of education and educational management in the direction of standardization, modernization, socialization and democratization
· Objectives for each educational level
Pre-school education
To take care of and educate children under 6 years old with high quality for their comprehensive development in terms of physical fitness, emotional, intellect and aesthetic sense on the basis of a scientific educational curriculum for these children, a teaching staff dedicated to their careers and knowledgeable of their professional skills, a school/class network which is appropriate with diverse modes and a network of disseminating knowledge and advising how to bring up children to each family, even in rural, mountainous and island areas. Appropriate investment and priority policies for pre-school teachers in rural, mountainous and difficult areas will be issued.
By the year 2010, most of children will be taken care of and educate under various forms. The ratio of children in the age group of 0-2 years attending kindergarten will increase from 12% in 2000 to 14% by 2005 and 16% by 2010. For the children in the age group of 3-5 years, the school attendance ratio will increase from 50% in 2000 to 58% by 2005 and 67% by 2010. For 5-year-old alone, the mobilization ratio to attend kindergarten for the preparation for Grade 1 at primary level will increase from 81% of the age cohort in 2000 to 90% by 2005 and 98% by 2010. The ratio of children suffering from malnutrition in pre-schools will decrease to less than 20% by 2005 and 15% by 2010.
General education
- Primary education:
Facilitate children in the age cohort of primary education to have comprehensive development of morality, intellect, physical fitness and aesthetics, fondness and initially basic skills for their life-long learning.
To consolidate and improve the achievements of primary education universalization nationwide. To increase the mobilization ratio of the age cohort from 95% in 2000 to 97% by 2005 and 99% by 2010.
- Lower secondary education:
To continue the implementation of comprehensive education and to create conditions for the students to develop harmoniously in their virtue and talent, personal dignity and ability, health and sense of aesthetics.
To achieve the standards of lower secondary education universalization in cities, urban and economically advantaged areas by 2005 and in the whole country by 2010. To increase the ratio of lower secondary students in the age cohort from 74% in 2000 to 82% by 2005 and 90% by 2010.
- Upper secondary education:
To continue to implement comprehensive education, accomplish the provision of general knowledge in the light of consistent standards as well as facilitate the streaming of students to a certain level with emphasis on career orientation and provision of several popular professional capabilities to students to create favorable conditions for them to enter the real life or choose appropriate professional areas for their further studies after graduating from upper-secondary schools.
To increase the ratio of students in the age group attending schools from 38% in 2000 to 45% by 2005 and 50% by 2010.
Vocational and technical education
- Professional secondary education
Expand the training from technicians, professional employees with professional knowledge and skills at intermediate level based on the foundation of knowledge gained from lower secondary education.
To attract 10% of students in the age group to enter professional secondary schools by 2005 (the proportion of secondary students to professional secondary ones equals to 4.5/1), 15% by 2010 (the proportion of secondary students to professional secondary ones equals to 3.3/1).
- Technical education
Expand worker training, emphasize on training highly skilled workers for some key industries and for labor export. Strongly develop intensive technical training, especially in rural areas in order to carry out the shift of labor structure from agriculture to other industries.
Attract post-lower secondary students enrolling in technical training schools from 6% of the ones in the age group in 2000 to 15% by 2005 and 25% by 2010.
Higher and post-graduate education
To meet well the needs of highly qualified manpower for the cause of industrialization and modernization and sustainable development of the country, speed up the development of science and technology, production, business and social services, enhance the competitive abilities on the international scene, especially to respond to the knowledge economy and information society which are being formulated.
To increase the number of university students per 10,000 of population from 117 in the school-year 1999-2000 to 140 by 2005 and 200 by 2010. Double post-graduate training size after each 5-year cycle.
Non-formal education
To develop non-formal education system to give everyone at all knowledge levels opportunities to pursue life-long learning which is suitable with their own circumstances and to make their contributions to the improvements of people's knowledge and manpower training for the cause of country construction.
To thoroughly implement illiteracy eradication for people in the age cohort of 15-35 in urban, delta and midland areas and 15-25 in the mountainous, remote and isolated areas; to minimize the illiteracy in the cohort of older age. To effectively implement post-illiteracy eradication programs and post-complementary primary education in order to contribute to the implementation of the policies on lower-secondary education universalization by year 2010.
To develop various types of distance education in the form of programs of education and training to provide certificates/degrees and professional skill training to generate incomes and raise the life quality as well as standardization of the qualifications of teaching staff, managers, administrators and civil servants from central to local levels. Provide retraining and in-service training for labor force on the basis of 5-year cycle.
· Objectives of training manpower for socio-economic fields
Industrial and construction manpower
Increase the size and adjust training structure so that there will be 45-50% and 60-65% of the trained laborers working in industrial and construction fields by 2005 and 2010 respectively, in which 7.5% of them hold college-level or higher qualifications, 15% hold professional secondary qualifications and 42.5% hold skilled technical worker training qualifications. Priority will be given to training for key industries, centralized industrial zones, export processing zones, industrial labor export and rural areas in order to change labor structure.
Manpower for agriculture, forestry and fishery fields
The rate of trained labor force in the fields of agriculture, forestry and fishery will be 15% by the year 2005 (in which the holders of college-level or higher qualifications will be 2%, professional secondary qualifications 5%, skilled technical worker training qualifications 8%) and reaches 20-23% by 2010 (in which the holders of college-level or higher qualifications will be 4%, professional secondary qualifications 7%, skilled technical worker training qualifications 9-12%)
Develop agriculture, forestry and fishery promotion centers. Attention will be made to provision of training manpower for farm economy development.
Manpower for service industry
- Transportation:The trained labor force will reach 42% by 2005 (in which the holders of college-level or higher qualifications will be 4.5%, professional secondary qualifications 9%, skilled technical worker training qualifications 28.5%) and 65% by 2010 (in which the holders of college-level or higher qualifications will be 10%, professional secondary qualifications 20%, skilled technical worker training qualifications 35%).
Modernize manpower training for the transportation by airlines, sea and river routes, roads and railways and the construction of ports, bridges and roads.
- Post Office and Telecommunication: The trained labor force will reach 92% by 2005 (in which the holders of college-level or higher qualifications will be 21%, professional secondary qualifications 31%, skilled technical worker training qualifications 40%) and 95% by 2010 (in which the holders of college-level or higher qualifications will be 25%, professional secondary qualifications 25%, skilled technical worker training qualifications 45%). Priorities will be given to training highly qualified manpower, skilled workers and managers.
- Trading: The trained labor force will reach 30-35% by 2005 (in which the holders of college-level or higher qualifications will be 8%) and 55-60% by 2010 (in which the holders of college-level or higher qualifications will be 13%). Priorities will be given to improvements of training manpower for the
field management and business administration.
- Tourism: The trained labor force will reach 70% by 2005 (in which the holders of college-level or higher qualifications will be 12%) and 80% by 2010 (in which the holders of college-level or higher qualifications will be 20%).
Improve the quality of training manpower for the field management and tourism management meeting regional and international standards.
- Finance and banking:To quickly train a cadre of good specialists and financial and banking managers who meet international standards. To pay attention to provide in-service training on regular basis for professional management staff at localities. Quickly provide training manpower for the development of stock market in Vietnam.
Manpower for other social fields:
- To ensure sufficient staff for health sector in terms of quantity, quality and
structure. To emphasize on hi-tech training for the development of health sector technologies to be equal to regional level; at the same time, train people with their knowledge of community healthcare to meet the local needs. To focus on training health management staff at all levels. By 2005, try to reach more than 50% of commune clinics which have doctors; all commune clinic have midwives and obstetric and paediatric assistant doctors; 100% of villages have community health workers. To consolidate and develop mobile healthcare teams in mountainous areas in order to both propagandize health education and carry out disease cure and prevention activities for people. By 2010, there will be more than 65% of commune clinics which have their doctors. To push up the training of traditional medical practitioners.
- To train cultural and sports staff who are dedicated to and capable of working as a key cadre for the development of the cause of culture, sports and physical education. To pay attention to training and fostering activities for the talented people in the fields of culture, sports and physical education. To train cultural management staff (i.e. museum and historical relics protection and preservation, motion picture management...) and sports management staff for local areas, especially in remote, isolated areas. Expand opportunities for young athletes and good record holders in national and international competitions. To build key sports training and competitions centers in provinces and cities.
- Increase the size of and improve the quality of regular training and in-service training for civil servants including commune authority cadre. To complete training and upgrading system in the forces of security, defense and political/social organizations.
· Manpower training for labor export
To form and develop a manpower training and upgrading system for export.
Explore foreign labor market, evaluate the needs, develop strategies, plans and manpower training policies for export. Pay attention to highly qualified manpower, education and training and science and technology specialists.
To improve the capacities of several manpower training institutions for the purpose of labor export.
· The percentages of trained workers with different qualification levels:
2005
2010
College, university and
Post-graduate levels
4%
5.5%
Professional secondary
level
6%
8%
Technical worker level
22%
28.5%
Total
32%
42%
· Priority objectives:
From now to 2010, education and training priority objectives are as follows:
- To train manpower for the cause of industrialization and modernization in which emphasis will be made on highly qualified science and technology manpower, good management staff and skilled technical workers, training manpower for priority technologies (information, biology, new material technology and automation), training manpower for rural areas for the shift of labor structure and for labor export.
- To consolidate and improve the achievements of primary education
universalization and illiteracy elimination. To implement and consolidate the lower secondary universalization nationwide.
SOLUTIONS FOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEVELOPMENT
· Basically and comprehensively reform curriculum, content and teaching and educational methodologies, especially examinations and assessment methods
In order to improve education and training quality and efficiency, the following solutions will be implemented in the coming time:
- To design general education curriculum to be relevant to each educational level.
To ensure the comprehensive, basic and modern but simplified, appropriate, practical focused, realistic, locally relevant characteristics of the curriculum which involves students in learning activities inside and outside classes, train
students' activeness, helps them apply what they learned to create good behaviors and habits in their lives and improve self-learning abilities of students.
Change assessment methods to assess regularly with a view to motivating students' learning fondness and providing them learning instructions. The end of lower and upper secondary level assessments will contribute to guiding students to choose the paths for their future.
In educational and teaching curriculum, attention should be given to the physical and aesthetic training.
Set up standards for curricula, teachers and school facilities and have assessments in the light of those standards.
Write a set of new secondary textbooks to meet the reforms of content and teaching and learning methodologies.
Encourage and facilitate ethnic minority students to have their own scripts, learn ethnic minority languages as well as improve the quality and efficiency of learning the common language. Strengthen and improve secondary boarding schools for ethnic minority people.
- In technical, professional secondary and college-level education, provide students with knowledge and basic skills inside the institutions in conjunction with professional skill training in the workplace of production units and businesses. Attract specialists working in production units and businesses to participate in developing undergraduate and technical training curricula and content.
- Strongly reform the university and college enrollment in combination with streaming policies to reduce the pressures on and increase the efficiency of the enrollment.
- In undergraduate and postgraduate training, further promote the self-learning and study of the learners. Provide more teaching/learning materials, equipment and upgrade libraries, laboratories and facilities for practice. Improve the methods of training organization in the direction of flexibility.
- To build some methodology centers in order to bring changes in education and training methodologies, write instructional manuals and organize training for the key cadre for the methodology changes at all educational levels.
- To strengthen the roles and change teaching methodologies in the subjects of psychology, pedagogy and also methodologies of teaching different subjects in the teacher training faculties and institutions in order to make those subjects realistic and useful to the teaching and educational methodologies of the teachers.
- To quickly apply information technology into education and training to improve teaching, learning and assessment methods.
· Develop teaching and lecturing staff
In order to have sufficient teaching staff in terms of both quantity, quality and structure, the following solutions should be implemented:
- Promote pre-school teacher training to meet the demands of public and non-public pre-schools. Training enough general teachers according to defined norms. Supply more university teachers in order to reduce current average student/teacher ratio of 30 which is very high to 20.
Increase step by step the percentage of primary teachers holding college degrees from 20% in 2000 to 30% by 2005 and 40% by 2010. All lower secondary teachers will have college degrees upwards. And also increase the percentage of lower secondary teachers holding university degrees from 20% in 2000 to 30% by 2005 and 40% by 2010. Increase the percentage of upper secondary teachers holding Master degrees to 5% by 2005 and 10% by 2010. Increase the percentage of professional secondary teachers holding postgraduate degrees to 7% by 2005 and 10% by 2010. Strengthen Master and doctoral training to supplement staff with high qualifications for universities and research institutes. Increase the percentage of university academics holding Master degrees to 32% by 2005 and 45% by 2010 and those holding doctoral degrees to 20% by 2005 and 25% by 2010.
- Improve training capacity of the existing teacher training institutions. Upgrade teacher training schools to teacher training colleges, moving forward to training pre-school and primary teachers at college and higher levels. Establish pedagogical faculties and teacher training centers inside other universities and colleges. Build two leading pedagogical universities which both provide high quality teacher training and advanced educational science research.
- Attract good graduates from universities and colleges to join the lecturing staff.
Priorities should be given to sending university and college lecturers overseas for training by a variety of funding sources. Attract high qualification scientists from national research institutes and Vietnamese scientists in foreign countries to involve in teaching in universities and colleges.
- Improve pre-service and in-service teacher/lecturer training methods to respond to changes in the content and education and training methodologies in schools at all levels. Proper attention should be made to training and preserving teachers moralities and qualities.
- Finalize working norms and regime of teachers. Gradually develop salary payment policies based on workload and teaching quality. Increase regional and pedagogical allowances in difficult areas to make the total amount of allowances in these areas equal to some 2-3 times of basic salary.
· Improve national education system
Although our country's education system has been relatively complete, there are inappropriateness and waste of time and human resources. To overcome such situation, the following solutions should be carried out in the coming period.
- Implement streaming at upper secondary level on the basis of ensuring the knowledge to be popular, basic, comprehensive and career-oriented with further content in several subjects in order to develop abilities and live up to students' expectations as stated in the Education Law. Consider the streaming by some subjects to inherit the achievements made by specialized schools and classes and of national and international examinations. Quickly establish streaming subjects of industrial technology or agriculture, forestry and fishery according to each residential location. Develop technical upper secondary schools which provide students with both upper secondary level knowledge and technical skills to contribute to carrying out post-lower secondary streaming. University and college enrollments will basically base on the general knowledge standards for all streaming areas and at the same time issue incentives to encourage students to further study their specialties which they were already prepared in secondary schools.
- Closely link comprehensive technical and vocational centers with upper secondary schools in different locations, increase student learning time length at those centers in the process of bringing schools to two-shift-per-day ones.
- Carry out post-lower secondary streaming to gradually increase the number of students entering professional secondary and technical schools with appropriate ratios. Professional secondary schools will only select lower secondary graduates.
- Develop post-secondary training patterns including undergraduate, college-level training as well as others to carry out post-upper secondary streaming.
· Develop the network of schools, classes and education and training institutions
- Develop a network of general schools nationwide. In each commune location or places with small population, a group of communes should have at least one primary school and one lower secondary school which are permanent or semi-permanent with a part of modern equipment. Build in each province a high quality upper secondary school as a model for other ones. Consolidate specialized upper secondary schools in localities or those belong to universities to foster potential talents in the fields of science, art, physical education and orient specialized school graduates to pursue their further studies in the areas of being relevant to the subjects they learned at their schools.
Build more schools and classes and strengthen other conditions to gradually provide general students with have full-day schooling at their schools and schools with Internet access.
- Strengthen the network of professional secondary schools, especially the ones which are attached with communities. Provide training areas which are
appropriate with the labor demands in localities and non-state schools.
Build some key professional secondary schools for several areas and in some
localities.
- Consolidate long-term technical training schools (1-3 years of training). Develop vocational training in enterprises. By 2005, an intensive vocational training, training and career consulting center will be built in each district.
Complete the construction of 15 leading technical training schools by 2005 and 30 ones by 2010.
- Develop the network of universities and colleges including leading national
ones, central- and local-managed, public and non-public ones and open universities. Define standards and refer to those standards when considering the conditions to newly establish higher education institutions.
Develop specialized colleges belonging to different ministries and bodies. Facilitate to upgrade the existing professional secondary schools that provide the training of technicians and professional staff with post-upper secondary qualifications to colleges. Establish community colleges in the provinces which have relatively big population and high human resource demands. Diversify the training objectives of local teacher training colleges in the direction of community ones in which the major objective is to train lower secondary teachers. Upgrade and newly build about 40 colleges of different kinds from now to 2010.
Strengthen universities. In the next 5 years, emphasize on building 5 national
leading universities to gradually bring them to regional status. Continue, in the following 5 years, to invest into these universities and at the same time expand the investment into 5 more national leading universities. Build several modern laboratories and libraries in universities. Newly establish about 10 universities, mainly semi-public and private ones from now to 2010.
- Strengthen two open universities with modern facilities and equipment, materials and specialists to implement distance education.
- To 2005, universities and technical education institutions will be linked with Internet in principle.
- Facilitate international and foreign organizations to establish high quality
education and training institutions in Vietnam.
· Increase financial resources for education and training
The State should give priority investment to education and training sector to be proportional to other sectors. Increase spending share for education and training in State budget from 15% in 2000 to 18% by 2005 and 20% in 2010. The State expand the loans for education sector with priority interests rate from WB, ADB, international organizations and other countries. Draw expenditures from State budget to provide investments to build some high quality education and training institutions, support the implementation of lower secondary education universalization and assist difficult localities and people. In the period of 2001-2005, the State spends approximately 200-300 billion Vietnamese dong each year to send 400-500 science officials for overseas training in developed countries.
Mobilize other financial sources: depending on educational levels and regions, collect tuition fees which equal to 3-25% of the educational expenditure for one learner. Reasonably increase the number of non-public schools, especially post-lower secondary ones. Mobilize the contributions to education and training from enterprises, especially the ones which use human resources training by institutions.
Develop enterprises inside universities, colleges, professional secondary schools and research institutes. Apply research findings into production and generation of incomes for those institutions. By 2010, technology and multi-disciplinary universities will have their own enterprises. Increase income sources from technology transfer activities, services, consultancy, production, business and specialist export to about 20-30% of university budgets.
Strive to mobilize different financial sources for investment into education and training to reach 5.8% of GDP by 2005 and 6.9% of GDP by 2010.
· Improve education and training management
- Redefine the functions, responsibilities/tasks of education and training management bodies in the direction of emphasizing on developing and guiding the implementation of strategies, plans and policies and issuing and implementing educational procedures. Strengthen the functions of inspection
and assessment of policy and regulation implementation. Finalize the system of legal documents which concretize Education Law and consolidate legal environment for education and training activities.
- Promote forecasting activities and development of direction plans for education and training development. Put education and training into the masterplan of socio-economic development of the country, each area and locality. Issue policies on regulating training size and structure to be in line with the demands of socio-economic development and overcome the existing imbalance.
- Complete the organization of education and training management mechanism from ministerial to local and education and training institution levels. Define and institutionalize the roles, functions of management levels. Strengthen inspection mechanism of education and training process to ensure the inspection activities in accordance with legal regulations.
- Appropriately implement educational decentralization to ensure that the State consistently manages the national education system and to improve the
activeness of education and training institutions. Strengthen the roles and responsibilities of provincial/city People's Committees in the carrying out of
State management functions in education and training in their localities through provincial/city Departments of Education and Training. Give provincial/city Departments of Education and Training needed responsibilities and rights in managing educational budget and teaching staff and educational officials.
Enhance the autonomy and accountability of universities and colleges in the light of Education Law. Establish and quickly implement the activities of the bodies which are responsible for making sure the quality of higher education.
- Conduct training and continuing in-service training of knowledge, management and planning skills for educational managers. Pay attention to the training of moral qualities of educational managers. Strengthen long-term training and intensive in-service training programs and institutions with regard to educational management. use appropriate technical means and equipment to improve the efficiency of management activities.
- Promote research activities and apply research findings on education and training management.
- Set up and develop philosophy in socialist education system. Study and supplement and finalize the Party's educational policies, directions and guidelines. Reform education and training management methods and disseminate the knowledge of common educational sciences in the society.
Increase budget and other conditions to design, pilot, test and assess the impacts of directions and policies on education and training reforms with a view to transferring and receiving new processes in education and training. Strengthen international information sources of education and training.
- Establish an educational management information system to collect, process and provide reliable and regularly updated data on education and training and relevant socio-economic fields and help the assessments of situations and make quick and correct decisions.
- Strengthen the Party's leadership towards education and training. All Party
Committees from central to local levels should regularly direct and monitor the implementation of education and training policies, especially the political and ideological education activities. Set up order and disciplines and consider the development of education and training as a target for building up a healthy and strong Party committee.
Consolidate the Party unions in education and training bodies from ministerial to school levels to really become the leadership kernel. Develop the Party in education and training institutions, firstly teaching staff so that all general schools and higher education institutions have their own Party Committees. Bring into play the roles of Trade Unions, Youth Unions, Pioneer Associations, Student Union, Parents Union, Learning Promotion Association and other mass unions, social organizations in the development of education and training.
· Key solutions
Among the above mentioned strategic solutions, the key ones are:
- Principally and comprehensively reform curriculum, content, education and training methods and organization options
- Provide pre-service and in-service training for teachers to meet the education and training reforms.
- Improve education and training management activities
- Strengthen education and training socialization.
PHASES AND THE NATIONAL TARGET PROGRAM ON EDUCATION AND TRAINING
· Phases
The implementation of education and training strategy to 2010 is divided into two major phases to be consistent with the two five-year plans of 2001-2005 and 2006-2010 periods.
2001-2005 phase
Consolidate the achievements of illiteracy elimination and primary education universalization. Carry out lower secondary education universalization in about two thirds of provinces and cities. Implement full-day schooling at schools in urban and economically advantaged areas. Carry out post-lower secondary education streaming with the ratio between upper secondary education/professional secondary education which equals to 4.5/1. Reshape the structure and network of professional secondary schools, colleges and universities. Emphasize on building 5 leading national universities. Increase training sizes in colleges and universities to some 140 students per 10,000 people. Double the postgraduate training size compared with that of 2000. Improve the enrollment activities in universities and colleges.
Reorganize management activities. Finalize system of sub-law documents. Implement the decentralization in management and increase the autonomy for universities. Strengthen activities of inspection, monitoring, overcome negative phenomena and reestablish orders and disciplines in education and training.
Consistently prepare conditions for curriculum, materials, equipment and teaching staff to carry out the strong reforms of education and training in institutions at all levels.
Secondary schools in advantaged locations and most of universities and technical education institutions will be linked with Internet.
Increase spending share for education and training in State budget to 18% (about 3.8% of GDP) and reach some 5.8% of GDP including other sources.
2006-2010 phase
On principle, general students are provided full-day schooling at schools. Meet lower secondary education universalization standards nationwide. Carry out post-lower secondary education streaming with the ratio between upper secondary education/professional secondary education which equals to 3.3/1. Complete community and specialized colleges. Emphasize on building 5 leading national universities more. Increase training sizes in colleges and universities to some 200 students per 10,000 people. Double the postgraduate training size compared with that of 2005. Create favorable conditions for people who have their desire and ability to have further studies after graduating from secondary schools.
Finalize the management decentralization Universities fully carry out their autonomy and accountability. Systems of inspection, monitoring and quality accreditation fully operate.
Complete the basic changes of curriculum, content and teaching and educational methodologies at all educational levels.
Basically, general schools will be linked with Internet.
Increase spending share for education and training in State budget to 20% (about 4.2% of GDP) and reach some 6.9% of GDP including other sources.
· National target program on education and training
During the period of 2001-2005, implementing the national target program on education and training with the following objectives:
1. By the year 2005, complete the lower secondary education universalization in the light of national standards in about 40 provinces and cities.
2. Reform curricula, content, methodologies and textbooks
3. Increase the percentage of trained workers to 32% in 2005, adjust training
structure, strengthen computing human resources and put information
technology into schools.
Projects:
1. Strengthen and improve the quality of primary education universalization and illiteracy elimination, implement lower secondary education universalization
2. Reform curricula, textbook contents and methodologies
3. Train human resources for information technology and put information
technology into schools
4. Teacher pre-service and in-service training. Improve physical capacity for
teacher training institutions
5. Provide support for the education in mountainous, ethnic minority and difficult areas
6. Improve school facilities, build some leading universities and professional
secondary schools
7. Provide training and in-service training for professional and technical human resources in foreign countries
8. Improve technical training capacities
Wednesday, July 13, 2005