Đọc tiếng Việt

Memo from Michael Michalak (U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam)

April 2008

1. Summary: Vietnam's educational system is in crisis, and the lack of qualified human resources is one of the biggest factors limiting Vietnam's development and economic growth. Top Vietnamese officials, including Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, are aware of this challenge, and have explicitly asked for U.S. assistance in changing how Vietnam educates its people. Moving from today’s failed system, protected by a hide-bound and largely unqualified hierarchy of educators, will not be easy, but the United States has a unique opportunity to make a big difference and put its stamp on Vietnam's education system well into the future. As a start, Prime Minister Dung has offered to pay for a "brick and mortar" American University, with the United States providing the institution's president, plus key administrative and teaching staff. He has also asked for our help in launching the Ph.D studies in the United States of at least 2,500 young Vietnamese, on the understanding that these men and women will return as the core of the nation’s political and academic elite in the decades to come. Many of these students would be funded by Vietnam.

2. I believe that responding positively to these requests, perhaps in conjunction with the meeting this summer between President Bush and the Prime Minister, is strongly in the U.S. national interest. In responding to Vietnam's call, we would ensure not only that Vietnam's tens of millions of students, but also their education-obsessed parents, see the United States as a key partner in their personal and collective futures. The United States is seen as the model of "Global Standards" that Vietnam seeks to emulate. Positive engagement now will create windows of opportunity for the Mission to influence both Vietnamese attitudes toward the United States and domestic support for democratic, participatory government. Using existing resources, we are already engaged in many programs and initiatives to help Vietnam modernize its educational system and educate the next generation of Vietnam’s decision-makers. Adding new foreign assistance resources now and supporting the creation of a wide range of strategic public-private partnerships will maximize American influence on Vietnam’s educational system and thus on the future shape of Vietnamese society. Specific requests for new State, USAID and FCS education initiatives are listed in paragraph 18. End summary.

STATE OF EDUCATION IN VIETNAM

3. Vietnam is facing a crisis in its education systems at all levels that jeopardizes its pursuit of economic progress and global integration. Officials lack training in education administration, teachers are poorly trained and underpaid, and corruption plagues the system at every level. In addition, opportunities for higher education are limited, as the system can accommodate only a fraction of those seeking admission. In 2007, Vietnamese universities had places for only 300,000 of the 1.8 million candidates who sat for university entrance exams. Although the number of university students has doubled since 1990, the number of teachers has remained virtually unchanged, a statistic disturbing to experts. Even with the increase, however, Vietnam ranks last regionally in the percentage of college age students enrolled in tertiary education, with only 10% in universities, below China’s 15%, Thailand’s 41%, and South Korea’s 89%, according to World Bank statistics. Even those students lucky enough to attend a university face a system in which instructors are paid on a strictly piece-work (by the class) system with no effective mechanisms for ensuring quality of instruction. Ph.D’s are purchased, and being named a professor is a bureaucratic process, not an honor linked to a career in teaching.

4. Even worse, corruption has spread like a cancer through the system. Poorly paid administrators and teachers purchase their positions, then shake down parents, who pay for admission to schools, then pay extra to have teachers grade their children. Until recently, cheating led by teachers on nation-wide tests was common, especially when the poor results would reflect badly on “the system.” Predictably, Vietnam is falling behind its neighbors in generating knowledge and innovation. In 2006, Hanoi's top two universities - Vietnam National University and Hanoi University of Technology - produced just 34 scientific publications, as compared to 4,556 at Seoul National University and nearly 3,000 at Peking University. Vietnam also scores low in another measure of capacity for innovation, the number of resident patent applications, having filed only two patent applications in 2006 compared with 40,000 in China.

5. Failures in Vietnam’s educational system also result in universities being unable to produce the number of educated managers and skilled workers needed by Vietnam's modernizing economy. This lack of qualified human resources is the single biggest factor limiting Vietnam's future development and economic growth, a fact reiterated by the mayor of Ho Chi Minh City during his April 17 meeting with visiting HHS Secretary Leavitt. To cite one example of this shortage, an American high-tech company that interviewed 2,000 recent graduates, all considered to be among Vietnam’s “best and brightest,” found only 40 applicants that met minimum hiring requirements. The situation is not the result of insufficient public spending on education, which at 4.3% of GDP, is higher in Vietnam than in neighboring China, Korea, The Philippines, or Thailand. This all is sadly ironic, as many parents in this Confucian society would mortgage their souls to ensure their children get a good education. If all outlays are counted, parents here actually spend quite liberally to advance their children's education, but to depressingly little effect.