VZCZCXRO6688
RR RUEHHM
DE RUEHHM #0549/01 1951011
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 141011Z JUL 09 ZDK
FM AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH CITY
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5951
INFO RUEHHI/AMEMBASSY HANOI 3856
RUEHHM/AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH CITY 6187

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HO CHI MINH CITY 000549 
 
SIPDIS 
 
ECA/PE/V/M FOR ALISON MOYLAN 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KPAO OEXC SCUL VM
SUBJECT: IVLP DEBRIEF OFFERS NEW INSIGHT ON VIETNAM'S EDUCATION 
 
REFORM STRUGGLES 
 
REF: A. A) 08 HANOI 1038: DEPUTY SECRETARY NEGROPONTE'S SEPTEMBER 
11, 2008 MEETING WITH VIETNAMESE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER AND MINISTER 
 OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING NGUYEN THIEN NHAN 
     ¶B. B) 08 HANOI 463: EDUCATION SCENE SETTER: U.S. MISSION 
 EDUCATION INITIATIVES TO SHAPE VIETNAM'S FUTURE 
 
-------- 
Summary 
-------- 
 
¶1. With a massively flawed education system continuing to stand 
between Vietnam and its development goals, the debriefing of two 
participants in the International Visitors Leadership Program 
(IVLP) on Elementary and Secondary Education issues shed new 
light on the challenges faced by Vietnam's educators. While the 
focus of the Ministry of Education and Training has generally 
been on higher education reform, these administrators made a 
compelling case that without equally great attention to the 
country's K-12 students and educators, Vietnam's restructuring 
will ultimately fail to meet its goals of having a competitive 
and educated population. The participants spoke excitedly about 
American educational resources, buy-in by parents and 
governmental organizations, and professional development 
opportunities for teachers and administrators, while speaking 
with near despair about the educational situation in Vietnam. 
End summary. 
 
----------- 
Background 
----------- 
 
¶2.  Ms. Le Thi Anh Dao, Deputy Head of the High School 
Administration Section at the Thua Thien-Hue Department of 
Education and Training (DOET), and Mr. Huynh Cong Dam, 
International Relations Manager at the Ho Chi Minh City DOET, 
joined 20 other participants from around the world for this 
program, which took place February 3-27. The group visited 
Washington, D.C.; Salt Lake City, Utah; Kansas, Missouri; and 
Louisville, Kentucky. They also broke into smaller groups, with 
Ms. Dao traveling to Pensacola, Florida, and Mr. Dam visiting 
Corpus Christi, Texas. During the program, participants had a 
chance to visit charter schools, transition schools for the 
disabled, volunteer programs such as Teach 4 America, and 
parent-teacher association meetings, as well as many other types 
of schools and programs. 
 
 
 
----------------------------------------- 
Closing the Door to Higher Education? 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  Mr. Dam was most critical of the Vietnamese education system 
when he discussed the mixed messages sent by the lack of slots 
at the nation's public colleges and universities. According to 
Mr. Dam, because public universities have spaces for only about 
16% of the students who sit for the national entrance 
examinations (Ref B), the Ministry of Education and Training 
(MOET) has made the Vietnamese textbooks and curriculum 
increasingly tougher, to the point of being "too difficult for 
teachers and students to follow". To ensure that universities 
don't exceed their low recruiting goals, "the entrance 
examination must be written so that 80% of the students will 
fail." The goal of the K-12 teaching and testing system is thus 
not to prepare students for college or a professional career, 
but to weed out all but the top students. (Comment: In a meeting 
with Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, Deputy Prime 
Minister and Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Thien 
Nhan stated that Vietnam did not plan to open any new public 
universities. While private universities remain an option in 
Vietnam, they are generally seen as of inferior quality. End 
comment.) 
 
¶4.  Ms. Dao struck a somewhat more hopeful note, praising U.S. 
programs that allow high school students to take a small number 
of classes for college credit. She has suggested to her boss 
that Thua Tien-Hue's education department institute a similar 
partnership with some of the area's top-notch universities. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------------------ 
If You Thought Students Were Discouraged, Look at the 
Administrators 
 
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------------------ 
¶5.  Despite this Confucian culture's claims to venerate 
teachers, financial rewards for teachers and administrators are 
appalling -- and only get worse as one moves up in the system. 
As Mr. Dam noted, while DOET "rewards" the best and brightest 
teachers by asking them to take an administrative position in 
the Department, their salaries and bonuses are cut by about half 
once they leave the classroom. Many teachers thus refuse the 
 
HO CHI MIN 00000549  002 OF 003 
 
 
promotion, and those who do accept often return two or three 
years later to beg DOET to allow them to return to the classroom 
so that they can earn a decent living. For example, upon 
accepting his promotion, Mr. Dam's salary package went from four 
million VND ($242 USD) per month as a teacher to two million 
($121) as an administrator. 
 
¶6.  Both participants felt that it was imperative to reward 
teachers and administrators with professional development and 
continuing education opportunities. Mr. Dam has recommended to 
DOET that every official holding the rank of assistant principal 
and above be required to study English and to take the TOEFL. 
Ms. Dao was especially impressed with her meeting at the 
National Association of Elementary and Secondary School 
Principals and is working with her department to develop a 
training course that would cover management principles, 
classroom organization, and other useful topics. 
 
------------------------ 
 
 
 
 
The Power of Posters 
 
 
 
 
------------------------ 
 
 
 
 
¶7.  In addition to salary restrictions, Vietnamese classes face 
shortages of nearly every imaginable resource. Both participants 
stated that classrooms hold an average of 45-50 students; in 
fact, Ms. Dao said that she was disappointed in American class 
sizes only because she wanted to "see how American teachers 
handled big classes." While she was happy for American students, 
she felt that, in this respect, the American system was so 
different that it did not offer lessons relevant to the 
Vietnamese experience. Ms. Dao also thought that it was 
impressive that American teachers generally had their own 
classroom, where they could grade papers and prepare for lessons 
during free periods. Due to infrastructure shortages, Vietnamese 
teachers must move from class to class, with little space of 
their own when not teaching. Again, while Ms. Dao noticed the 
big difference this made in curriculum development and work 
comfort, she was not optimistic that Vietnam would ever have 
enough educational space to make such a change likely. 
 
¶8.  Of all Mr. Dam's impressions, perhaps the most striking was 
his deep admiration of the simple educational resources 
available to American students. He cited seeing one poster 
showing the lyrics of the U.S. national anthem, explaining that 
Vietnamese teachers who wanted a similar teaching tool would 
have to invest their own unpaid time and money and make it 
themselves. He added "An American teacher can just buy it!" He 
repeatedly stressed the difference that such tools make in 
brightening a classroom and "creating a real learning 
environment." 
 
-------------------------- 
Buy-in vs. Lip Service 
 
 
 
 
-------------------------- 
¶9.  Throughout our debriefing sessions, the refrain of "buy-in" 
sounded repeatedly. Both Ms. Dao and Mr. Dam were especially 
impressed with the level of parental involvement they noticed 
during their visit. Mr. Dam was impressed by the fiscally 
responsible Parent-Teacher Associations he saw in the United 
States, in which members must volunteer a set number of hours 
and the board must submit a monthly financial report. Both 
talked excitedly about the large number of parents who 
volunteered at U.S. schools and noted that such programs had the 
dual advantage of reducing teacher workloads and allowing 
parents to be involved in their children's education. 
 
 
¶10.  Mr. Dam paid a special compliment to the USG, when he 
discussed an American student he saw taking an online science 
quiz on a NASA educational website. Noting that "many (USG) 
organizations set up websites to introduce themselves, but also 
create pages for students and teachers," he said that "this 
shows the government's emphasis on education." (Comment: This 
stands in clear difference from Vietnamese government sites, 
which often fail to present clear information to adults, let 
 
HO CHI MIN 00000549  003 OF 003 
 
 
alone explain their mission to students and children. End 
comment.) 
 
 
 
------------------- 
A Tough Road Ahead 
------------------- 
 
¶11.  Both participants' moods wavered between admiration of the 
U.S. system and pessimism that the innovative strategies they 
saw would never work in Vietnam. Ms. Dao also wished they had 
seen some "normal" schools, because although she admired the 
innovations she saw, she would have liked to talk to 
administrators at struggling schools whose problems were more 
like her own. Still, both participants returned with cautious 
optimism that some changes could indeed be implemented. Vietnam 
may not soon become an educational rival to the United States, 
but the efforts of these young and energetic officials will 
ensure that Vietnam's primary students have effective advocates 
who are trying to make things better. 
FAIRFAX