The governance of general education institutions: perspectives of the key players

Abstract

Vietnam's general education institutions are undergoing a significant transformation to meet the demands of the new policy system in terms of governance and to make internal changes to be able to meet society's demands as well. However, the content and concept of governance are still quite novel in the perception and operation of parents of students, professional groups, administrators, principals, vice principals, and other stakeholders who are primarily responsible for the institutions' operation. To determine how these participants understand the elements of the notion of "governance", an online survey was conducted. The responses were then collected and processed by Excel software. The findings indicate that these respondents' levels of awareness are generally similar, with a mean of over 4.3 on a five-level Likert scale. However, most noticeably, the professional group has a higher level of awareness than the other groups. Additional research is required on certain features of governance awareness and the connection between governance aspects and issues at institutions of general education.