An education project is helping Viet Nam meet the labor demands of its booming economy.
Lao Cai - Inside newly built libraries in upper secondary schools in Lao Cai, scores of students can often be found each afternoon, poring over rented books and hunched over their homeworks. The schoolwork is difficult, says Nguyen Thu Trang, but fun. More importantly, it gives the students a chance to fulfill their dreams of going off to college and becoming professionals.
The new libraries and books are part of a $55-million project approved by ADB in 2002 that is helping the Government to gradually expand upper secondary education.
"The Government's goal is to expand upper secondary education by 2010, focusing on industrialization and economic modernization. Quality improvement is of highest priority," says Eiko K. Izawa, an ADB education specialist and the project leader.
Solid Human Resource Base
In Viet Nam, as in most countries, education is viewed as strongly linked to economic growth; to invest in education is to invest in long-term socioeconomic development. The national education policy rests on the central pillar of rapid human resource development to meet the labor needs of a highly competitive market economy, within a socialist framework to ensure a high degree of equity.
Before the project came along, dreams of students living in remote disadvantaged areas of becoming teachers, doctors, or engineers seemed impossible to achieve. Despite the impressive expansion of schooling in the late 1990s, with primary education becoming nearly universal in 2000, much remained to be done to improve the quality of secondary education, particularly of the upper secondary level which can directly contribute to enhancing human resource development.
Only one out of every three Vietnamese teens aged 15-17 years had access to upper secondary education, and the numbers were far more dismal for ethnic minorities. Disparities in enrollment were also significant between rural and urban areas, between the poor and nonpoor, and between boys and girls.
At the same time, the country's employment structure was heavily skewed toward agriculture, which accounts for 70% of the total workforce. In rural areas, over 90% of the workforce had no formal training, while a mere 1.7% had college or university degrees.
If it was to meet the labor demands of its booming economy in a post-World Trade Organization affiliation period, Viet Nam had to both improve and expand access to education.
"The country's economic climate calls for the improvement of education," adds Ms. Izawa. "In order to achieve a sustainable and inclusive growth path and to survive in a globally competitive economic environment, the country needs to build a solid human resource base with adaptable skills."
Classrooms Built, Teachers Trained
Today, in 22 of the most disadvantaged provinces in the country, over 800 new classrooms now serve as second homes to thousands of students, with about 1,200 more on the way.
"The classrooms have enough space for group study activities, and teachers can manage the lessons more effectively with the instructional materials and equipment provided by the project," said the Si Ma Cai No. 1 school principal.
To address quality issues, the project is supporting the Government's dissemination of a new, diversified curriculum - along with the accompanying textbooks, teachers' guides, and workbooks - to 11 provinces. Thousands have been given training - core trainers on the new textbooks, school principals on education management, and core teachers on quality enhancement.
In addition, over 8,500 teachers and 300 school principals have now been trained in student-centered teaching methods - far beyond the target of 2,700 teachers and 55 principals. "Students can learn much more actively by this method," said Mr. Trinh Khac Binh, a math teacher in Si Ma Cai No. 1.
A school in each of Viet Nam's 64 provinces has also been given instructional materials and equipment so it can demonstrate to others their effective use.
Targeting Ethnic Minorities
Ethnic minority youth in the country remain disadvantaged with regard to education, particularly secondary education. From 1993 to 2002, net enrolment rate at upper secondary schools increased slightly from just 2.1% to 19.3% for ethnic minorities, compared with 7.9% to 45.2% for the Kinh. Worse, ethnic minorities are more likely to repeat grades or drop out of school than other students.
A component of the project financed by the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction has been specifically addressing constraints to the participation of ethnic minority youth in education. Since the remoteness of their homes from the schools discouraged many, boarding facilities were provided. For poor students, scholarship schemes were developed. For those simply not interested in school, a youth leadership orientation program was devised to provide role models and an appreciation of secondary education.
By project completion in 2009, Viet Nam will have over a hundred thousand new, skilled workers that can help sustain its booming economy. From another perspective, this also means that over a hundred thousand Vietnamese children will have then been given a chance to fulfill their dreams.