Education in Vietnam

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Vietnam's education system can be divided into 5 categories: pre-primary, primary (Year 1-5), secondary (Year 6-9), high school (Year 10-12) and higher education (4-5 years for undergraduate level and 2 years for master level).

[edit] Primary education

Children normaly start their primary education at the age of six. Education at this level lasts 5 years and it is legally free and compusory for all children. That may be one of the reasons why, despite remaining a poor country, the proportion of the country population who are literate are very high, over 90% on average.

[edit] Higher education

University entrance examinations are very important in Vietnamese student lives. The pressure on the candidates remains very high despite a lot of measures have been take to reduce the heat around these exams, since sercure a place in a public university has been considered to be a major step towards a success career for young people, especially those from rural areas or disadvantage families for long time. In the year 2004, it was estimated that nearly 1 million Vietnamese students took the university entrance exam, but on average only 1 out of 5 candidates succeed. Normally, candidates take 3 exams, each lasts 180 minutes for the fixed group of subjects they choose. There are 4 fixed groups of subjects:

Group A: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry; Group B: Mathematics,Biology, Chemistry; Group C: Literature, History, Geography; Group D: Literature, Foreign Language, Mathematics;

Private universities: According to Vietnam's Ministry of Education and Training- Nguyễn Thiện Nhân, there are currently 23 non-public universities, accounting for 11% of the total number of universities. These non-public universities are currently training 119,464 students, or 11.7% of the total number of students. The government is planning to increase the number of non-public universities to 30% by 2007.

Teaching Quality Issues: The entire higher education system is facing several crises such as out-of-date course curricula, a lecturer-centered method of teaching and learning, research activities separated from teaching activities, a big gap between theory and practice that leads to a large number of graduates being unable to find a job, and the fact that degrees from Vietnamese universities are not recognized worldwide. There is, therefore, a huge demand for quality educational services.