The Triumphs and Failures of Mass Education in Vietnam

Abstract

THE EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION which Vietnamese communist leaders have promoted in their country in the past half-century is poorly known in the West; so poorly known, that it is well to begin its historical study not with a master interpretation but with a tour of as many of its important themes as possible. In public, Vietnam's MarxistLeninist leaders clearly believe that the differences among national economies and national educational systems are merely matters of historical stages, which will be gradually resolved in relatively similar ways. Behind the scenes, it is not always obvious how much they may privately feel that their educational options are also deeply conditioned by unique cultural and historical circumstances. The compendious parade of political, cultural, and economic factors examined in this article is, therefore, deliberate. The Vietnamese educational revolution has known extraordinary cycles of achievement and frustration, which are not simple matters to understand. On the one hand, between June 1946 and June 1950 Viet Minh guerrillas, using night classes and independence hours (gio doc lap, the name given to the rare tranquil periods when French airplanes were not bombing them), taught basic literacy to some ten million previously uneducated Vietnamese, while fighting a major war at the same time. This feat was unprecedented in Southeast Asian history. Even French newspapers acknowledged this.' Three decades later, in 1980, the percentage of eligible children who were actually receiving some form of education at age six in northern Vietnam was 90 per cent-a considerably higher percentage than that generally found in Third World schools. Again, this was a remarkable accomplishment for a war-ravaged country which had one of the least productive economies in the world and one of the least favorable ratios of land to people. (In southern Vietnam in the same year, however, only 70 per cent of all six-year olds were being educated.)2