Towards quality early childhood education in Vietnam

Save the Children, together with UNICEF, World Bank and other international development agencies co-hosted a forum to discuss how to improve the quality of early childhood education (ECE) and to make policy recommendation to promote quality early childhood education in Vietnam.

More than 150 representatives from the Ministry of Education and Training, World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO, Viet Nam Women’s Union, Plan Viet Nam, Save the Children, World Vision, VVOB and teachers from 30 provinces participated the forum.

Opening the forum, World Bank Country Director Victoria Kwakwa said Viet Nam has made some great progress; it achieved universal primary education and is moving towards universal lower secondary education. But “Viet Nam needs to further improve the quality and relevance of its education to meet the demand of a growing economy”, adding that figures show “universal pre-school education was stagnating at 44.6% in 2012 and only 7 provinces have achieved universalized 5-year old preschool education”.

At the forum, Deputy Minister of Training and Education Nguyen Thi Nghia said: “Pre-school education was the first level in the national education system, laying basic foundation for the children’s development so that we should create the best condition for the children”.

“Improvement of pre-school education and strengthening the “readiness to learn” for children are vital to the human resource development of the country”, she said.

However, Nguyen Thi Nghia commented on the limited resources of the Vietnamese Government for ECE, suggesting not relying on the state budget alone. She urged different organizations should join hands to improve the quality of ECE and stressed the importance of participation of family, community, other stakeholders and the private sector.

Discussions at the forum focused on plans to develop early childhood education in Vietnam and the roles of family and community in early childhood development and care in Vietnam.