Vietnam: uncovering the secrets to its success

04 July 2018

Education Development Trust has partnered with the Vietnam Institute of Educational Sciences to investigate what lies behind Vietnam's learning success: Promising practice: government schools in Vietnam. The report's authors, Tony McAleavy Director of Research and Consultancy and Rachael Fitzpatrick, Research Officer, will be sharing the findings at IIEP-UNESCO in Paris and online at 4pm CEST on 4 July 2018.

Vietnam's government schools have attracted a great deal of international attention since the publication of the 2012 PISA student tests. Vietnamese students performed particularly well in science, ranking eighth globally out of 65 participating jurisdictions. Vietnam maintained this position in 2015.

We wanted to investigate what lies behind Vietnam’s learning success and have conducted a policy analysis, reviewed available secondary data, and conducted qualitative fieldwork in four contrasting provinces in Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Binh Dinh and Ha Giang.

Through our investigation we have identified five interesting features of the Vietnamese school system – each of which played a significant role – and these features are explored in detail in our report published today, 4 July 2018.

"Vietnam's PISA results have shown the world that quality and equity in education can rapidly improve; this report reveals what lies behind this success, not just in terms of the policies and practices that Vietnam has prioritised, but also by showing how these have been sequenced and successfully implemented."

Andreas Schleicher, OECD

Find out more:

On 4 July 2018, the report's authors, Tony McAleavy Director of Research and Consultancy and Rachael Fitzpatrick, Research Officer, shared their findings in a webcast hosted by IIP-UNESCO. Watch the webinar here.

Both authors also shared their insights in a recently recorded podcast below: