Laws of Vietnam

DECIDES:

Article 1.- To approve the "2001-2010 educational development strategy" promulgated together with this Decision.

Article 2.- To assign the tasks of implementing the strategy:

a) The National Council for Education shall assist the Prime Minister in directing the implementation of the 2001-2010 educational development strategy.

b) The Ministry of Education and Training shall assume the prime responsibility and coordinate with the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, the concerned ministries, branches and provincial/municipal People’s Committees in organizing the implementation of the 2001-2010 educational development strategy; draw up and organize the implementation of five-year and annual educational plans in conformity with the educational development strategy as well as the socio-economic development plans; guide, inspect, supervise and sum up the implementation situation and periodically report it to the Prime Minister; organize the preliminary review of the implementation of the 2001-2010 educational development strategy in early 2006 and the final review thereof in early 2011.

c) The Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs shall assume the prime responsibility and coordinate with the Ministry of Education and Training, concerned ministries, branches and localities in working out and implementing the job-training development plans compatible with the 2001-2010 educational development strategy; formulate policies to support policy pupils and students.

d) The Ministry of Planning and Investment shall direct branches and localities to incorporate educational development and personnel training plans into the periodical plans of their respective branches and localities; assume the prime responsibility and coordinate with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Education and Training in mobilizing financial support from various sources inside and outside the country for educational development; assume the prime responsibility and coordinate with ministries and branches in organizing the work of information on manpower demands and labor market fluctuation.

e) The Ministry of Finance shall assume the prime responsibility and coordinate with the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs in determining the proportion of annual budget to be spent on education, ensuring the implementation of the 2001-2010 educational development strategy; perfect the financial policy and financial management regime in the educational field so as to efficiently use various sources of investment in education; work out policies on financial autonomy in educational establishments and financial policies to encourage the association of training with scientific research and application and encourage various socio-economic sectors to invest in education.

f) The Government’s Commission for Organization and Personnel shall coordinate with the Ministry of Education and Training as well as the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs in carrying out the administrative reform in the educational service; determine the payroll, work out regimes and policies towards educational workers, collectives and individuals participating in the educational socialization.

g) The Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment shall assume the prime responsibility and coordinate with the Ministry of Education and Training as well as other ministries, branches and localities in working out mechanisms, policies and plans for utilizing the potentials of the educational service in scientific and technological research and application, environmental protection; assume the prime responsibility to organize the coordination of scientific- technological research activities between research institutes and universities as well as colleges.

h) The ministries and branches shall, according to their respective functions and tasks, organize and direct the implementation of the 2001-2010 educational development strategy within the ambit of their jurisdiction; coordinate with the Ministry of Education and Training and other ministries and branches in performing the tasks of educational development nationwide.

i) The provincial/municipal People’s Committees shall have to develop education in their localities according to competence; draw up and direct the implementation of five-year and annual educational plans in conformity with the 2001-2010 educational development strategy and their local socio-economic development plans in the same period.

Article 3.- This Decision takes implementation effect after its signing.

Article 4.- The ministers, the heads of the ministerial-level agencies, the heads of the agencies attached to the Government, the presidents of the provincial/municipal People’s Committees and members of the National Council for Education shall have to implement this Decision.

Prime Minister
PHAN VAN KHAI

FOREWORDS

In order to attain the above-mentioned objectives, education, science and technology play the decisive role and the demand for educational development is very urgent.

After nearly 15 years of renewal, Vietnam’s education has obtained important achievements though weaknesses and shortcomings still exist. The 2001-2010 educational development strategy determines the objectives, solutions and steps under the guiding principles of diversifying, standardizing, modernizing, socializing and building an education of practical and efficient nature, creating a great qualitative improvement, taking our country’s education to the level of developed countries in the region, raising the people’s intellectual level, training human resources and fostering talents, actively contributing to the achievement of the objectives of the 2001-2010 socio-economic development strategy.

1. THE PRESENT EDUCATIONAL SITUATION IN VIETNAM

1.1. Achievements:

a) A fairly comprehensive, unified and diversified system of national education has been formulated with all schooling grades and training levels from pre-school education to postgraduate education. The networks of general education schools have been built nationwide. There have been in various mountainous provinces and districts boarding and/or semi-boarding schools for ethnic minority pupils. Vocational education schools and centers have developed in various forms, short-term job-training courses have strongly developed. Universities and colleges have been founded in almost all big population areas, regions and localities throughout the country. The schools’ material and technical foundations have been upgraded and bettered. The numbers of schools and classrooms built under the national standards have been on the constant rise.

The educational system has been initially diversified in form, mode and resources…, step by step integrating itself into the general trend of world education. From a system of only public schools mainly with formal education, now it witnesses non-public schools, various forms of non-formal education, open schools as well as various modes such as correspondence education, training cooperation with foreign countries. The regime of school fee collection from all post-universalization education grades and training levels has been implemented. The percentages of non-public school pupils and students against the total numbers of pupils and students have risen constantly, accounting for 66% of the total crech children, over 50% of the total kindergarteners, more than 34% of the total senior high-school pupils and over 11% of the university students in the 2000-2001 academic year.

c) Social justice in junior secondary education has been basically ensured; education in regions inhabited by ethnic minority people has seen positive changes, with the setting up of nearly 250 boarding schools and more than 100 semi-boarding schools for ethnic minority pupils. Illiteracy has been eliminated, the universalization of primary education has been completed and the junior secondary education is being universalized throughout the country. Nearly 94% of the people aged 15 upward have become literate; the number of schooling years has reached 7.3 on average. Basically, our country has achieved the gender equality in junior secondary education.

d) The work of socialization of education has brought about initial results. Various social forces have more and more actively participated in mobilizing children to go to school, building material foundations of schools, investing in school opening, contributing educational fund in various forms. The proportion of social funding contributed to education has increasingly risen, making up some 25% of the total educational fund in 2000.

e) The educational quality has been improved in some aspects. The knowledge and capability to approach new knowledge of part of pupils and students have been heightened; the specialized senior high education has reached a high level in the region and the world, the number of general-education pupils winning national and international prizes for a number of study subjects is on the rise. A large number of university and college graduates have great ambitions to establish their own social positions, to earn their own living, have the sense of self-reliance and are dynamic. The training quality of a number of fundamental and technological sciences has been raised one step. Tertiary education has developed step by step, training out a large contingent of science workers and technicians of bachelor, master or doctor degree, who have been working in almost all social and economic domains and made important contributions.

Thanks to achievements in the field of education and other social domains, our country’s human development index (HDI) in the past 10 years has seen marked progress according to the ranking table of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP): from the rank of 121 with 0.456 index to the rank of 101/174 countries with 0.682. As compared with the economic development index (GDP per capita), the HDI has jumped 19 ranks.

Investment in education from the State budget and other sources has increased. The State budget investment in education rose from 8% in 1990 to 15% in 2000. Many big programs and schemes on diversified mobilization of resources for the development of education, particularly general education, have been deployed.

The educational service has made some changes in educational objectives; diversified educational forms and funding sources, mobilizing the society to take part in educational development, creating schooling opportunities for many people and intensifying international exchange and cooperation. Mass organizations and social organizations have carried out many activities in support of educational development.

The political stability, the fruits of economic development and the better living conditions of people in the period of renewal have further created favorable conditions and environment for the education to develop.

1.2. Weaknesses:

In spite of the above-mentioned achievements, panoramically our country’s education remains qualitatively weak and structurally imbalanced; the educational efficiency is not so high; education is not closely associated with reality; training is not closely linked to utility; the teachers’ contingent remains weak and the material foundations are inadequate; the educational programs, textbooks and methods as well as managerial work are slow to be renovated; some negative phenomena and the lack of discipline are slow to be redressed.

a) The educational quality is generally low, failing to approach the advanced levels in the region and the world on the one hand, and to satisfy the requirements of various production and business lines and trades in the society on the other hand. The graduate pupils and students are still limited in the capability of creative thinking, practicing skills and occupational adaptability; their sense of labor discipline, cooperation and healthy competition is not so high; their capabilities to work independently are limited.

b) The educational efficiency is not high. The percentage of graduates from each educational level as compared to the total enrollment at the beginning of the corresponding level, especially in mountainous, deep-lying and remote regions is low (approximately 70% for primary and junior secondary education and 78% for senior secondary education in the 1999-2000 school-year). The percentage of trained laborers remains low; a large number of graduate pupils and students are unable to find jobs.

c) The level-based structure, the occupation-based structure and the region-based structure, though having been improved one step, remain imbalanced. The work of direction as well as social psychology focus heavily on tertiary education, while proper attention has not yet been paid to vocational training, particularly in jobs requiring high skills. The educational scope has in recent years been expanded, but largely at the university level; the number of students enrolled in technical or technological colleges, intermediate vocational schools or job-training courses is still low and slow to rise. The work of vocational- training forecast, planning and orientation has not been well carried out. Pupils and students have not yet been provided by their schools with adequate professional guidance as well as capabilities to make their own careers.

Educational establishments, particularly tertiary education and vocational education establishments, are too concentrated in big cities and big industrial zones. Education in deep-lying, remote areas as well as regions inhabited by ethnic minority people still meets with difficulties.

Due attention has not been paid to forms of non-formal education and outside-school education particularly for laboring people.

d) The teachers’ contingent is inadequate in quantity and generally low in quality, failing to meet the requirements of both expanding the scope and raising the quality and efficiency of education. Particularly, the contingent of university lecturers have had few conditions to regularly update their knowledge and approach new scientific and technological achievements in the world.

e) The schools’ material foundations remain inadequate. Three-shift classrooms have not yet been completely done away with; there still remain palm-leaf roofed and bamboo-walled classrooms in mountainous, deep-lying and remote regions. Libraries, equipment and facilities in service of teaching and learning are in serious shortage and obsolete.

f) Educational programs, textbooks and methodology are slow to be renovated and modernized. The educational programs are heavily academic, scholastic and examinations-loaded, without attaching importance to creativeness, practicing capabilities and vocational guidance and without being closely linked to the practical requirements of socio-economic development; the educational efficiency has not yet been linked to scientific and technological research and application. The intellectual education has not yet been organically combined with education in ethical quality, civic personality, social responsibility, the sense of national dignity… The examination regime remains backward. The way of enrolling university students is cumbersome and costly.

g) The educational administration is less effective. A number of negative phenomena in education have not yet been redressed in time. The phenomena of "commercialization of education" such as diploma buying, point selling, enrolling students beyond prescribed quotas, unprincipled collection and spending have harmed the prestige of schools and teachers. Cheating in tests and examinations committed by pupils and students will badly affect the learners’ personality and working attitude in the future. Drug addiction and social evils have found their way into schools.

Generally speaking, the quality and efficiency of raising the people’s intellectual levels, human resource training and talent fostering remain low, failing to meet the country’s requirements in the new period of development.

Those weaknesses and shortcomings are attributed first of all to subjective factors; the educational administration level has failed to keep pace with the reality and development requirements when the planned and centralized economy has been transformed into the socialist-oriented market economy; the resources of the State and the society have not yet been well combined and efficiently used; the managerial thinking and mode are slow to be renovated; correct strategic orientations and macro-policies are slow to be drawn up for handling the important interrelationship between the scope, quality and efficiency in education. The legal documents on education have not yet been promulgated in time. The work of educational inspection is still weak and not given proper attention. The theoretical matters on educational development in the new period have not yet been properly studied in order to orient the practical activities. Due attention has not yet been paid to the raising of the qualifications of educational administrators at all levels. A number of administrators and teachers have ethically degenerated.

The Party’s and State’s viewpoint that "education is a top national policy" has not yet been fully perceived nor become the action guideline among a section of leading officials and administrators at all levels. Education is still regarded as the own affairs of the educational service; the close cooperation and synchronous coordination between branches, levels as well as social forces and the educational service have not yet been created for the development of the educational cause; due attention has not yet been paid to the combination between education at school and education in families as well as in the society.

Regarding objective causes, over the recent years, our country’s education has been put under a strong pressure exerted by the increasingly high demand for learning due to population growth and people’s higher intellectual levels, the economy’s limited capability to employ a large redundant labor as well as the limited investment in education. The country’s shift to the market economy and adoption of the open-door policy have changed the norms of social values and quality of laborers... This has directly affected the orientations to develop the learners’ personality. Meanwhile, no effective measures have been worked out for our country’s education to exert positive impacts on those changes.

The delay in the State administrative reform and the renovation of economic and financial manage-ment, labor employment, wage policies… has also constituted factors hindering the effective settlement of existing problems in the educational service in mobilizing the combined strength of the entire society for the cause of educational development in order to create a rapid growth, satisfying the extremely high demands of the process of national industrialization and modernization.

Ours is a poor country having low per-capita national income, inadequate financial sources, material foundations and equipment as well as low investment in education but highly increasing social demand for education. In such context, despite the above-mentioned weaknesses and shortcomings, the achievements recorded in the field of education over the past years are remarkable.

2. CIRCUMSTANCES AND OPPORTUNITIES AS WELL AS CHALLENGES TO OUR COUNTRY’S EDUCATION IN SEVERAL DECADES AHEAD

2.1. International context:

b) Globalization and international economic integration has become an objective trend, being, on the one hand, the process of cooperation for development and, on the other hand, the process of struggle of the developing countries to protect their national interests. The economic competition among nations has become fiercer and fiercer, requiring higher labor productivity, higher quality of goods and rapid technological renewal. The media, telecommunications networks and Internet have facilitated the cultural exchange and integration and at the same time given rise to a fierce struggle to preserve national cultural identities.

The vigorous scientific and technological development, the dynamic development of various economies and the process of integration and globalization have made the narrowing of development gap between nations more realistic and faster. Sciences and technologies have become the basic driving forces for socio-economic development. Education constitutes the foundation of scientific and technological development as well as human resource development to satisfy the demands of the modern society and plays key role in raising the national pride, the sense of responsibility and the capabilities of the present and future generations.

c) Educational renovation is taking place on a global scale. Such a circumstance has given rise to profound changes in education, from the perception of educational quality and building of learners’ personality to the way of organizing the educational process and system. Schools have shifted from the enclosed state to the open-door state, dialoguing with the society and being closely associated with scientific and technological research and application; teachers have provided learners with ways of receiving information in a systematic manner and with analytical and synthetic thinking instead of only having passed knowledge to them. Investment in education has been considered the investment in development but not the social welfare as in the past.

Therefore, nations, from the developing countries to the developed countries, are all fully conscious of the foremost role and position of education and have to renovate education in order to be able to satisfy in a more dynamic, more efficient and more direct manner the requirements of national development.

2.2. Domestic circumstance:

In order to march forward from the state of being an underdeveloped country by taking a short cut, the role of education and science as well as technology has become more decisive. Education must take one step forward in advance, raising the people’s intellectual level, training human resources and fostering talents so as to successfully achieve the objectives of the socio-economic development strategy.

In our country, the process of industrialization and modernization has been carried out in a circumstance where exist various forms of ownership, various economic sectors operating under the socialist-oriented market mechanism. Commodity production has developed, thus broadening the labor market and increasing the demand for learning; on the other hand, it has also changed the perception of value and affected the selection of occupation, the learning motives, the relations at school as well as in the society. Free competition has differentiated the rich from the poor and widened the gap in learning opportunities between various strata of population.

The society has created conditions for education to develop and at the same time demanded that education must actively serve the society, timely adjust its structure and scale, raise the training levels so as to satisfy the diversified demands of the reality, raise the efficiency of education, quickly adapt to evolution of the human resource demand. Education should re-orient the perception of values, foster new personal quality, new capability and ensure equality in learning opportunities at all study levels and all training levels for people of all strata.

2.3. Opportunities and challenges:

The international and domestic circumstances have, on the one hand, created big opportunities and, on the other hand, posed no small challenges to our education. The educational renovation and development which are taking place on the global scale have created good opportunities for Vietnam’s education to quickly approach the new trends, new knowledge, modern theoretical bases, organizational methods as well as teaching contents and to make full use of international experiences for renovation and development.

Our Party, State and people have more and more treasured the role of education, paying more and more attention to education and demand that education be renovated and developed in order to satisfy the increasingly great demand of the people of all strata for learning and absorbing knowledge, professional skills, being training in necessary qualifications and capabilities in the period of national industrialization and modernization as well as international economic integration.

Our education has to surmount challenges not only of its own but also of world education. On the one hand, it has to redress its own weaknesses and shortcomings and develop vigorously in order to narrow its gap with advanced educations which are also embarking into renovation and development. On the other hand, it has to overcome the imbalance between the fast and extensive development requirements and the limited resources, between the fast and extensive development requirements and the urgent demand to raise its quality; between the requirements of creating fundamental and comprehensive changes and the requirements of maintaining the relative stability of the educational system.

The shifting of mechanism and economic development require that education must approach and adapt itself to the new mechanism, constantly develop and take one step ahead of the social development. Our nation is endowed with the tradition of patriotism, industriousness, eagerness for learning, good capability to absorb and apply new knowledge and skills. Those advantages should be brought into full play so as to overcome the challenges, and opportunities must be seized in order to build an advanced and modern education, directing toward a learning society, with a view to satisfying the demands of training human resources, raising the comprehensive quality of the Vietnamese people in the new time and promoting the social progress.

3. GUIDING VIEWPOINTS ON EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

3.1. Education is a top national policy. Educational development constitutes the foundation, the high-quality human resources constitute one of the important driving forces for boosting the cause of industrialization and modernization and the basic factor for social development as well as fast and sustainable economic development.

3.2. Building a popular, national, scientific and modern education along the socialist orientation, taking Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thought as foundation. Achieving social justice in education, creating equal opportunity for everyone to have schooling. The State and the society shall work out mechanisms and policies to help poor people study, encourage smart students to develop their talents.

Educating and comprehensively developing Vietnamese people with good morals, knowledge, good health and aesthetics, developing capability of individuals, training out laborers with professional skills, dynamism, creativeness, loyalty to the ideal of national independence and socialism, determination to advance forward, earning their own living , with high sense of citizen, contributions to making the people rich, the country strong and the society equitable, democratic, civilized, servicing the cause of national construction and defense.

3.3. Educational development must be closely linked with the socio-economic development requirements, scientific and technological advance, defense and security consolidation, ensuring the rationality in level-based structure, occupation-based structure and region-based structure; expanding scale on the basis of ensuring the quality and efficiency; combining training with employment. Realizing the principle of combining learning with practice, education at school with education in families and the society.

3.4. Education is the cause of the Party, the State and the entire population. Building a learning society, creating conditions for people in all age groups and at all levels to learn constantly and to learn in their whole life. The State shall play the leading role in the cause of educational development; stepping up the socialization of education; encouraging, mobilizing and creating conditions for the entire society to participate in educational development.

The guiding idea of the strategy for educational development in the 2001-2010 period is to overcome the shortcomings in many domains; continuing with the systematic and synchronous renovation; creating basis for markedly raising the quality and efficiency of education; actively servicing the cause of national industrialization, modernization and construction, taking the country on the path of fast and sustainable development and quickly catching up with developed countries in the region and the world.

4. EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES TILL 2010

4.1. General objectives:

The 2010-2010 socio-economic development strategy has clearly stated: To satisfy the demands for human resources which constitute a decisive factor for national development in the period of industrialization and modernization, fundamental and comprehensive improvement in education must be created. Hence, the objectives of the 2001-2010 educational development strategy are:

a) To create fundamental improvement in educational quality along the direction of approaching the world’s advanced level, suiting the Vietnamese reality, practically servicing the socio-economic development of the country, of each region, each locality, directing towards a learning society. To strive to take our country’s education out of the state of lagging behind in some fields as compared with developed countries in the region.

b) To give priority to raising the quality of human resource training, attaching particular importance to scientific and technological human resources of high levels, managerial cadres, good businessmen and skilled workers, directly contributing to raising the competitiveness of the economy; stepping up the tempo of unversalization of junior secondary education.

c) To renew the educational objectives, contents, methods and programs for all study grades and levels as well as training levels; develop the contingent of teachers, meeting the requirements of both development in scale and raising of quality and efficiency as well as renewing the learning and teaching methods; renew the educational administration, creating legal basis and promoting internal resources for educational development.

4.2. Objectives of developing educational grades, levels and forms:

Alongside the raising of educational quality and efficiency, the scope of educational grades and levels as well as training levels shall be expanded in conformity with the level-, occupation- and region- based structures of human resources. To raise the percentage of laborers trained at different levels to 40% by 2010, including 6% of laborers of collegial or higher level, 8% of intermediate vocational training level and 26% of technical workers. To universalize junior secondary education throughout the country.

To achieve social justice in education and create better and better schooling opportunities for people of all strata, particularly those in regions meeting with numerous difficulties.

a) Pre-school education: To raise the quality of care for and education of children of under 6 years old, laying foundations for children to develop all-sidedly in term of physical strength, sentiment, intellect, aesthetics; to expand the system of creches and kindergartens in all population regions, especially the countryside and areas meeting with difficulties; step up the activities of disseminating child care and education knowledge and advises to families.

By 2010, almost all children shall be given care and education in proper forms. To raise the percentage of under-3 children sent to creches from 12% in 2000 to 15% by 2005 and 18% by 2010. For children aged from 3 to 5 years, to raise the percentage of kindergarteners from 50% in 2000 to 58% by 2005 and 67% by 2010; particularly for 5-year old children, such percentage shall increase from 81% in 2000 to 85% by 2005 and 95% by 2010 in order to ready them for enrollment in the first grade of the general education. To reduce the percentage of malnourished children in pre-school education institutions to under 20% by 2005 and under 15% by 2010.

b) General education: To effect all-sided education in term of morals, intellect, physical strength and aesthetics. To provide basic, systematic and vocationally guided knowledge of general education; to approach the level of regional countries. To build a correct attitude for study, an active, creative method of study; to foster the eagerness for learning and knowledge, the capabilities for self-study and for application of knowledge to life.

Primary education: To develop fine natural characteristics of children, to form in pupils the thirst for knowledge, good qualities and primary basic skills in order to help them find interest in study and study well. To consolidate and promote the gains of primary education universalization throughout the country.

To raise the percentage of school-goers among the school-age children from 95% in 2000 to 97% by 2005 and 99% by 2010.

Junior secondary education: To provide pupils with junior secondary education knowledge and primary technical understanding as well as vocational guidance in order to effect the post-junior secondary education ramification, creating conditions for pupils to further their study or to embark on a laboring life.

To reach the standards of junior secondary education universalization in cities, urban areas, economically developed regions by 2005 and in the whole country by 2010. To raise the percentage of junior-secondary school goers among the pupils of eligible age group from 74% in 2000 to 80% by 2005 and 90% by 2010.

Senior secondary education: To effect the program on rational study subject- based specialization so as to provide pupils with fundamental general education knowledge according to uniform standards and at the same time to create conditions for every pupil to promote his/her capabilities and to acquire technical know-how, paying attention to vocational guidance in order to facilitate the post-senior secondary education ramification thereby graduate pupils may start their life or select occupations to further their study.

To increase the percentage of senior secondary school goers among the pupils of the eligible age group from 38% in 2000 to 45% by 2005 and 50% by 2010.

c) Vocational education: To attach particular importance to raising the quality of job teaching in association with raising the sense of labor discipline and modern working style. To link training with use demand and with employment in the process of economic and labor restructuring, satisfying the demands of industrial parks, export processing zones, rural areas, spearhead economic branches and labor export. To broaden the training of technicians and professionals with knowledge and skills of intermediate level, based on the junior secondary education knowledge.

To formulate applied technique- training system to meet the requirements of socio-economic development, with importance being attached to short-term job-training and the training of technical workers, technicians, professionals of high level based on the senior secondary education or intermediate vocational education knowledge.

Intermediate vocational education: To attract pupils in the eligible age groups into intermediate vocational training schools, achieving 10% thereof by 2005 and 15% by 2010.

Job-training: To attract junior secondary school graduates into job-training schools, raising the percentage thereof from 6% in 2000 to 10% by 2005 and 15% by 2010.

High-level job-training: To attract senior secondary school graduates and intermediate vocational school graduates into this program, achieving 5% by 2005 and 10% by 2010.

d) Graduate and post-graduate education: To satisfy the demands for human resources of high levels suitable to the socio-economic structure of the period of industrialization and modernization, raising the competitiveness and equal cooperation in the process of international economic integration. To create favorable conditions for expansion of post-senior secondary school education through the diversification of training programs on the basis of building a system suitable to the level-based structure, occupation- based structure and region-based structure of human resources and the capabilities of training establishments. To increase the capability to adapt oneself to jobs in the society, the capability to create jobs for oneself and for other people.

To raise the percentage of students per ten thousand people from 118 in the 2000-2001 academic year to 200 by 2010. To expand the scales of master-training from 11,727 trainees in 2000 to 38,000 and of doctorate- training from 3,870 in 2000 to 15,000 by 2010.

e) Non-formal education: To develop non-formal education as a form of mobilizing potentials of the community in order to build a learning society, create opportunity for all people of all level, all age groups and in all localities to be able to further their study throughout their lives in ways suitable to their own circumstances and conditions, contributing to raising the people’s intellectual level and the quality of human resources.

To consolidate and promote the gains in eradicating illiteracy for adults, particularly in mountainous, deep-lying and remote regions. To efficiently carry out post-literacy programs on follow-up education in order to contribute to achieving the junior secondary education universalization by 2010; create conditions for universalization of senior secondary education in the subsequent years.

To create opportunities for majority of laborers to further their schooling, to have re-training, short-term, periodical and regular fostering according to educational programs, professional skill programs, suitable to the requirements of raising labor productivity, increasing income or changing occupations. To attach importance to developing programs on standardization of the contingent of teachers, leading officials, administrators, State officials and employees from central to local levels.

f) Education of handicapped children: To create opportunities for handicapped children to study in integrated, semi-integrated or special classes, achieving 50% by 2005 and 70% by 2010.

5. SOLUTIONS TO EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

To achieve the above objective, efforts should be concentrated on effecting 7 groups of major solutions: 1) To renew the educational objectives, contents and programs; 2) To develop teachers’ contingent, renew the educational methods; 3) To renew the educational administration; 4) To continue perfecting the structure of national education system and develop networks of classes, schools and educational establishments; 5) To increase financial sources and material foundations for education; 6) To step up the educational socialization; 7) To step up international cooperation on education. Of these solutions, to renew educational programs and develop the teachers’ contingent are central solutions; to renew the educational administration is the field to start with.

5.1. To renew educational objectives, contents and programs:

The educational objectives, contents and programs shall be renewed along the direction of standardization and modernization, approaching the advanced levels of the region and the world; at the same time meeting the demands for human resources for socio-economic domains of the country, each region and of each locality; following the principle of combining study with practice, education with productive labor, theory with reality, education at school with education in families and the society. To attach importance to physical education and personality fostering for learners. To modernize teaching and learning equipment and facilities, laboratories, practicing establishments. To apply as soon as possible information technology to education in order to renew the educational methods and administration.

a) General education: To raise the quality of all-sided education; to reduce study load, draw up rational program structure in order to ensure the basic standard general education knowledge on the one hand and to create conditions for developing the capability of each pupil, raising the thinking capacity, practicing skills, increasing the practicality, treasuring knowledge about social sciences and humanity on the other hand; to supplement the achievements of sciences and modern technologies, which are suitable to the pupils’ capability to absorb them and approach the general education level of developed countries in the region; to pay due attention to education in qualities, morals, civic sense, physical strength and aesthetics for pupils.

Ethnic minority people are given conditions to study and firmly grasp the national language and to study their own scripts.

To attach importance to equipping pupils with and raising their knowledge on informatics and foreign languages. To teach foreign languages on a large scale, from grade 6 upwards; pupils may learn in a stable and continuous manner at least one foreign language so that they can use it after their graduation from senior secondary schools. To universalize the base informatics knowledge in schools, paying particular attention to the capability to access and process information on internets.

To realize the new educational programs and use new textbooks at the first year of the primary education and the first year of the junior secondary education as from the 2002-2003 school-year, then the first year of the senior secondary education as from the 2004-2005 school-year. By the 2006-2007 school-year, the deployment of the new programs and new textbooks in the senior secondary education shall be completed.

b) Vocational education: To make and issue lists of training occupations, renew and standardize the training contents and programs along the direction of flexibility, raising the practicing skills, the capability to create jobs by oneself, the capability to adapt oneself to fast changes in technologies as well as production and business realities, closely combining with employment in the society, succeeding to other training levels.

To closely combine the training in basic knowledge and skills at schools with the training in professional skills at production and business establishments. To mobilize experts working at various production and/or business establishments to participate in the elaboration of training programs and contents, in teaching and evaluating the training results.

To draw up high-level vocational training contents and programs along the direction of approaching the advanced levels in the region and the world, giving priority to the fields of information, biological, new-materials, machine-building and automation technologies as well as a number of branches in service of agriculture and rural development.

c) Graduate and post-graduate education: To renew vigorously the training programs along the direction of diversification, standardization and modernization, creating conditions to quickly absorb selectively training programs of developed countries in natural sciences, techniques and technologies…, compatible with the country’s demands and rendering practical service to the socio-economic development in general, to each branch, each domain, each region and each locality in particular.

The national universities, key universities and training establishments of spearhead scientific and technological domains must take the lead in renewing the educational objectives, contents, programs and methods.

To design transitional programs, multi-stage programs and apply flexible training processes in order to increase the opportunity for all people to take the tertiary education, particularly people in rural, mountainous, deep-lying and remote regions.

To promulgate framework programs for university education in the 2001-2002 academic year and for master training in the 2002-2003 academic year.

To renew the examinations regime, the enrollment regime, to draw up methods, process and systems for evaluating the training quality, the lecturers’ quality, the students’ quality in an objective and accurate manner, considering this a basic measure to redress the current examinations regime in education, to make healthy the educational process not only at the tertiary level but also at the general education levels. To pay special attention to renewal of training methods in pedagogical schools, first of all in two key teachers’ training universities in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, creating favorable conditions for renewal of teaching and learning methods in general education schools.

To strive to ensure that all schools have good libraries which are constantly updated and adequately equipped with textbooks, reference documents for students and lecturers. To modernize teaching and learning equipment, laboratories and practicing establishments. Upon requests, universities may organize the teaching of some study subjects in foreign languages. To ensure that after their graduation, students can well use computers to gather and process information and use one foreign language for working and communication, raising capability for international integration.

5.2. To develop the contingent of teachers, renew the educational methodology:

To develop the contingent of teachers enough in quantity, rational in structure and standardized in quality, meeting the requirements of expansion of scope and improvement of educational quality and efficiency.

To renew and modernize the educational methodology, shifting from the passive passage of knowledge with teachers doing the teaching and learners taking notes to guiding learners in their active thinking in the process of approaching knowledge; teaching learners ways for self-study, self-reception of information in a systematic way with analytical and synthetic thinking, developing the capability of each individual; enhancing the activeness and initiative of pupils and students in the process of their study and self-governed activities at schools and to participate in social activities.

To renew the programs on training and fostering teachers and lecturers, paying attention to their self-training, preservation and enhancement of teachers’ ethical qualities.

a) Pre-school teachers: To train pre-school teachers to satisfy the demands for teachers of public and non-public pre-school education institutions, proceed to standardize the contingent of pre-school teachers. To work out policies towards pre-school teachers, particularly those in rural, mountainous, deep-lying and remote regions.

b) General education school teachers: To adjust the structure of general education school teachers’ contingent, increasing the number of teachers of music, painting, physical training and sports, housework and household affairs, vocational guidance and job training in order to diversify the pupils’ study and activities in the course of proceeding to two-session study a day. To gradually increase the percentage of primary school teachers with collegial level. To strive to achieve by 2005 the target that all junior secondary school teachers are of collegial or higher level, of whom the head- and deputy-head teachers of study subjects shall have the university degree. To increase the percentage of senior secondary school teachers with master degree to 10% by 2010. To attach particular importance to investment in building the contingent of teachers for mountainous, deep-lying and remote provinces for ethnic minority people. Teachers shall regularly attend refresher courses to foster and raise their levels.

c) Teachers of job-training schools and intermediate vocational schools: To train and foster the contingent of teachers of job-training schools and intermediate vocational schools according to set standards, to supplement teachers for a number of new training fields and trades, realize the rotation of teachers for professional fostering in a cycle of once every five years. To raise the percentage of intermediate vocational school teachers having the post-graduate degree to 10% by 2010. To develop the contingent of guest teachers, including technical workers, high-level professionals in enterprises, lecturers of universities, colleges and technological research institutes.

d) University and college lecturers: To quickly train out, supplement and raise the level of the contingent of university and college lecturers in order to reduce the too high current average student/lecturer ratio (of 30) to 20, of which 10-15 for the natural science, technical and technological branches, 20-25 for social science and humanity branches, economic branches, and at the same time to anticipate the development of university education in years to come. To raise the master and doctor- training norms in order to supplement high-level human resources for universities and colleges. To increase the percentage of university lecturers with master degree to 40% and with doctoral degree to 25% by 2010. To attach importance to training out female lecturers of high level. Lecturers shall be given conditions to approach new knowledge and scientific as well as technological achievements of the world.

To select excellent students for supplementation to the sources of teachers at universities and colleges and for further training at home and abroad. To prioritize the sending of university and college lecturers abroad for training and fostering with State budget and other funding sources. To invite and create favorable conditions for high-level scientific and technological cadres who have practical experiences and are working at research institutes, management agencies or enterprises and overseas Vietnamese scientists to participate in teaching at universities and colleges.

e) To perfect the labor norms, working regulations, regimes and policies for teachers: To step by step build the regime of wages paid according to the teaching volume and quality. To well implement the preference policies towards teachers, educational administrators who work in areas meeting with socio-economic difficulties or educate special subjects. The State works out regimes and policies of wage preference for teachers. To expand the recruitment of teachers and lecturers according to the regime of long-term contracts,

f) To enhance the training capacity and renew the training programs of pedagogical schools and pedagogical departments: To set up new pedagogical departments, teachers- training or fostering centers in a number of other universities and colleges. To focus on building two key pedagogical universities which train out high-quality teachers on the one hand and conduct research into educational science at the advanced level on the other hand. To prioritize the training of teachers who are ethnic minority people and teachers who know ethnic minority languages for educational establishments in regions where large numbers of ethnic minority people reside.

5.3. To renew the educational administration:

To basically renew the educational administration thinking and mode along the direction of raising the effectiveness of State management and the substantial decentralization with a view to promoting the activeness and the sense of self-responsibility of localities and educational establishments, efficiently settling urgent issues, preventing and repelling current negative phenomena.

a) To raise the effectiveness of the Government’s concentrated direction in materialization of the educational strategy. To renew the functions and operating mode of the National Council for Education headed by the Prime Minister along the direction of assisting the Prime Minister in directing the implementation of the educational development strategy. The National Council for Education is composed of an assisting body, mobilizing the majority of scientists, educators, socio-economic activists, who have prestige in various domains to participate in the process of elaborating and evaluating policies, development plans, evaluating the quality and efficiency of educational activities and the tempo of strategy implementation.

b) To renew the educational administration mechanism and mode along the direction of rational decentralization with a view to releasing and strongly promoting the potentials, creativeness, initiative and sense of self-responsibility of each level and each educational establishment, efficiently settling the irrationalities of the entire system in the development process. Specifically:

- The Ministry of Education and Training shall join the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs in performing the State management function as assigned by the Government, focussing on well fulfilling the three major tasks: working out educational development strategy, planning and plans; mapping out policy mechanism and regulations on management of training contents and quality; organizing examinations and inspections. To attach particular importance to the work of educational inspection and assurance of educational quality through organizing and directing the quality-inspecting system; work out mechanism for management coordination between the school, family and society, the mechanism for associating education and training with scientific and technological research and application through various organizational forms, associations, macro- and micro-policies.

- Raising the quality of the work of elaborating plans; making regular forecasts and stepping up the provision of information on human resource demands of the society for various branches, levels as well as educational establishments in order to regulate scale, occupation-based structure and level of training to suit the use demand.

- Substantially decentralizing management for ministries, branches and localities, delegating the right to organizational, personnel and financial management to local educational authorities. Perfecting the regulations on management of activities of schools of various types. Delegating more autonomy to universities and colleges in order to create conditions for schools to take initiative and display their creativeness in efficiently achieving educational objectives, and at the same time to take higher responsibility to the society and people.

- Conducting administrative reform in the educational service and renewing the educational administration mode. Institutionalizing the roles, functions, tasks, powers and responsibility in educational administration at all levels; promulgating and organizing the implementation of legal provisions on education.

c) To build and standardize the contingent of educational administrators. To regularly train and foster the educational administrators in administration knowledge and skills as well as ethical qualities; at the same time to regulate and rearrange cadres according to new requirements in accordance with the capability and qualities of each person.

To use proper technical means and equipment in order to raise the efficiency of the administration work. To build up the system of information on educational administration, to exploit sources of international information on education in order to support the situation assessment and decision making.

To continue building and developing the theories on socialist-oriented Vietnamese education; to study the supplementation and perfection of the Party’s and State’s guidelines and policies on education, renew the educational administration as well as contents and methods, to disseminate common knowledge on educational science in the society. To regularly assess the impacts of policies and solutions to educational renewal.

d) To enhance the Party’s leadership over education. The Party Committees from the central to local levels regularly direct and inspect the implementation of educational undertaking and policies, particularly the educational socialization, political and ideological education, building of order and discipline; to consider the development of education and the raising of educational quality a norm for building strong, pure and clean Party organizations. To develop the Party, building and consolidating Party organizations to really become the leading core in schools.

5.4. To continue structurally perfecting the national education system and develop the networks of schools, classrooms and educational establishments:

To structurally perfect the national education system along the direction of diversification, standardization and succession and association from general education, vocational education to graduate and post-graduate education. To organize the post-junior secondary education and post-senior secondary education ramification.

To develop the networks of schools, classrooms and educational establishments along the direction of overcoming irrationalities in level-based structure, occupation-based structure and region-based structure, linking schools with the society, linking training with scientific research and application. To prioritize the development of technical and technological colleges. To prioritize the development of educational establishments in ethnic minority people, deep-lying and remote regions.

a) To restructure the educational system to satisfy the national demand in the period of industrialization and modernization, to selectively absorb world experiences in organizing advanced educational system, suitable to Vietnamese conditions. To restructure the training levels according to international standards. To renew the system of education, renew the enrollment, diversify training modes, set standards on succession and transition between study levels and grades, training levels, between training establishments and apply other measures in support of restructuring the educational system.

b) To open more pre-school institutions, particularly in the countryside and areas meeting with difficulties. To encourage the development of non-public pre-schools, and pre-schools at production and business establishments.

c) To develop networks of general education schools throughout the country. To build in each commune, each ward or each commune or ward cluster in thinly-populated areas at least one primary school and one junior secondary school of national standards. Each province builds at least one key senior secondary school. To consolidate and build more boarding schools for ethnic minority pupils. To associate general education schools with general technical centers, vocational guidance centers and job-training establishments in various geographical areas in order to increase the time volume of activities of pupils thereat in the course of proceeding to all day study and activities at schools.

d) To effect the study subject-based specialization at the senior secondary education level on the basis of ensuring the basic and comprehensive standard general education knowledge as well as vocational guidance for pupils with heightened contents in some study subjects in order to develop their capability and satisfy their aspiration. To perfect the senior secondary school models for aptitude students in localities or universities in order to foster pupils with aptitudes in various fields such as sciences, literature, arts, physical strength and sports. To experimentally study and step by step formulate industrial, agricultural, forestrial, fishery or service senior secondary technical schools suitable to the socio-economic characteristics of each population regions.

e) To consolidate and open more job-teaching establishments, particularly establishments based in population areas and providing training in occupations suitable to local labor demands. By 2005, each province (city) shall have at least one local vocational schools, and each rural (urban) district shall have at least one center for short-term job-training, training and employment consultancy. To develop job-training in enterprises, occupational apprentice and hand-down in traditional craft villages, teaching privately practiced crafts. To consolidate schools for long-term training; strive to build 25 key job-training schools by 2005 and 40 schools by 2010. To draw up planning on intermediate vocational training school networks.

f) To deploy the implementation of the planning on university and college networks. To concentrate investment on building and developing key institutions including Hanoi National University, Ho Chi Minh city National University, two key pedagogic universities and a number of other key schools. Depending on the development requirements, to study the establishments of some new universities in accordance with the planning when conditions permits. To perfect the being-experimented model of community-based colleges and develop this form in localities when conditions permits.

To build universities and colleges into training-cum scientific research- technological application and transfer centers.

To build strong scientific and technological research institutes, centers or faculties at universities. To incorporate a number of scientific research institutes, first of all institutes for research into basic sciences, into universities.

To take initiative in research into forms and mechanisms for organic combination between training, research and practical application, taking the efficiency of practical application as target to orient and combine training with research, making the work of training and research adaptable to the market mechanism, directly contributing to raising the competitiveness of Vietnamese commodities.

g) To consolidate and open more regular education establishments such as regular education centers, community-based education centers, complementary education schools, meeting the regular-learning demands of people in all age groups and at all levels. To further supply two open-university education institutes with facilities, equipment and documents for expanding the form of correspondence education.

5.5. To increase financial sources and material foundations for education:

To increase investment from State budget, from all mobilized sources in the society so as to develop education; to renew the financial management mechanism. To standardize and modernize schools, facilities and equipment for teaching, research and learning.

a) State budget is the principal financial source for education. The State gives priority to investment in education in correlation with other branches. To increase the rate of State budget expenditure on education from 15% in 2000 to at least 18% by 2005 and 20% by 2010; to make full use of the financial sources borrowed at preferential interest rates for education from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, international organizations and foreign countries.

The State budget shall concentrate largely on general education levels, rural and mountainous regions, on high-level trainings and/or on branches where it is difficult to attract investment outside the State budget. To work out policies to ensure study conditions for children of people who have rendered meritorious services to the country and are entitled to entitlement policies, and the learning opportunity for children of the poor families. In the 2001-2005 period, the State shall annually reserve funding from the State budget and other sources for sending 400-500 scientific cadres abroad for training and fostering in countries with advanced sciences and technologies.

To mobilize many other financial sources, well combining various sources of capital inside and outside the country and contributions in the society for educational development.

b) To renew the financial management mechanism along the direction of delegating the right to financial autonomy simultaneously with implementing the regime of financial publicity and auditing regime in order to raise the efficiency of the use of financial sources invested in education. To finalize the credit mechanism and policies for education.

c) Localities shall draw up concrete plans on building more schools to speed up the universalization of junior secondary education, increase the percentage of general education school pupils studying and taking up activities at school the whole day to 70% and the rate of schools built according to the national standards to 50% by 2010. To attach particular importance to the construction of solid and semi-solid schools for regions frequented by natural calamities.

To implement the regime of preferences in land use, capital borrowing for investment in the construction of educational establishments.

d) To increase and modernize facilities and equipment in service of renewal of educational programs, contents and methods. To strive to achieve 60% of the general education schools and 100% universities and colleges having Internet connection. To open direct Internet connection with the university system.

e) To build school libraries. By 2010, all general education schools will have school libraries. To build the system of electronic libraries connected among universities in each region and proceed to connect them with national, regional and international libraries.

f) To build a number of national laboratories in national universities as well as key universities. To build establishments for technological experiment in a number of colleges.

5.6. To step up the socialization of education:

To encourage, mobilize and create conditions for the whole society to partake in educational development. To create conditions for all people in all age groups and at all levels to study regularly and study all their lives, proceeding to a learning society.

a) To perfect the theoretical and practical grounds, policy mechanism and solutions for educational socialization, aiming to achieve high unanimity in the society in perception as well as implementation organization; supplement and finalize legal documents and macro-policies to strongly encourage socio-economic organizations and individuals to invest in educational development; create conditions for developing and raising the training quality of the non-public school system, forms of education outside schools and community-based education centers.

b) To develop non-public schools. To transform a number of public schools into non-public schools when conditions permits. To consolidate and raise the quality of education in non-public schools. To raise the percentage of non-public job trainees (short term and long term) to about 70% by 2010 and the percentage of non-public university students to around 30% by 2010. Non-public schools shall be given priority in land rent and credit loans for school construction. Non-public schools as well as their teachers and pupils and students are equal to public schools as well as their teachers and pupils and students. To finalize and issue policy mechanism to support non- public schools.

c) To expand study promotion funds, education support funds, encouraging individuals and collectives to invest in educational development; to renew the school-fee regimes for public and non-public universities and colleges along the direction of collecting fees corresponding to the quality of educational services provided by schools and suitable to learners’ capabilities, and at the same time exempting or reducing school fees for social policy beneficiaries, families with meritorious services to the country and poor people.

d) To expand and enhance the schools’ relations with branches, localities, agencies, units, enterprises, socio-economic organizations…, creating conditions for the society to contribute to building material foundations, give comments on school development planning, adjust trade structures, training-level structure, provide funds for learners and admit graduate, supervise educational activities and create a healthy educational environment.

e) To build schools into cultural centers, healthy educational environment for all-sided education in ethics, intellect, physical strength and aesthetics. To bring into play the tradition of respecting teachers and treasuring morality, raising the teachers’ qualities and well carrying out the work of political and ideological education so that teachers really become exemplary in all aspects and bright examples for pupils and students. To well promote the activities of Party organizations, Youth Union organizations, Pupil- Student Associations in schools and resolutely get rid of all social evils and negative phenomena in teaching and learning.

f) To heighten the awareness and enhance the leadership of the Party committees at all levels, the supervision of the People’s Councils and the management of the People’s Committees at all levels; to bring into play the roles of Trade Union organizations, Women’s Association, Youth Union organizations, Vanguard Pioneers’ Association, Pupils-Students’ Association, Pupils’ Parents’ Association, Study Promotion Society and other mass organizations as well as social organizations in mobilizing social resources for the cause of educational development.

5.7. To step up international cooperation in education:

To encourage the expansion and development of relationship of cooperation in training and research with prestigeous and high-quality schools and scientific research agencies in the world with a view to exchanging good experiences which are suitable to Vietnamese conditions and increasing resources for educational development.

a) To mobilize resources from international cooperation so as to enhance facilities and equipment, build material foundations for general education, particularly in regions meeting with socio-economic difficulties.

b) To increase the number of aid projects and borrowed capital for training the contingent of technical laborers to meet the requirements of labor restructure and labor export.

c) To cooperate on investment in the construction of a number of hi-tech centers in tertiary training establishments; import advanced scientific experiment equipment in order to raise the efficiency of training and scientific research.

d) To develop cooperation projects in the field of scientific research in general and educational research in particular by tertiary training establishments, institutes, educational research centers; exchange information, organize seminars and international conferences; participate in activities of United Nations agencies, francophone organizations, Asia-Pacific organizations, Asia-Europe organizations and other organizations.

e) To encourage foreign investors who have experiences, potentials, traditions and advanced levels to set up educational institutions with 100% foreign capital or joint ventures with Vietnamese partners for tertiary training, vocational training, correspondence education, short-term refresher courses of regional and international levels in Vietnam according to the provisions of Vietnamese laws.

f) To work out policy mechanism to encourage, facilitate and well manage self-financed overseas study.

6. ORGANIZATION OF STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION

The implementation of the 2001-2010 educational strategy shall be divided into two stages corresponding to two five-year plans.

Stage one: From 2001-2005

This stage will focus on creating a basic upturn in educational quality, renewing the educational contents, methods and programs, building the contingent of teachers, renewing the educational administration, stepping up educational socialization and laying firm grounds for achieving of the strategic objectives in stage two. Urgent measures shall be taken to reorganize and renew the educational administration, prevent and repel negative phenomena, restore order and disciplines and create a healthy educational environment.

a) To deploy the implementation of some following urgent tasks in order to create basis and motive forces for the implementation of the strategy:

- To draw up scheme on renewal of educational administration mechanism; particularly to reorganize the macro- and micro-administration, the administration mechanism for public and non-public schools, on-the- job-training systems, B systems in public schools; focussing on educational and training quality.

- To quickly build up and deploy the quality-inspecting system at all educational levels, grade and in all training forms.

- To renew the perception, process and methods regarding the examination, evaluation tests (including the work of student enrollment), to minimize negative phenomena, create driving forces for changes in teaching and learning methods.

- To redress and overcome negative phenomena in widespread extra-teaching and extra-learning by combining administrative measures with basic measures to make the educational process and post-junior secondary education and post-senior secondary education ramification healthier.

- To rectify the managerial work and the granting of diplomas and certificates.

- To reorganize the printing and distribution of textbooks. To minimize the annual re-printing of textbooks, to raise the textbook- using coefficient and the percentage of pupils lent textbooks.

- To standardize the conditions on programs, teaching materials, lecturers’ contingent, material foundations, laboratories and other conditions in service of teaching and learning when new schools are established and old schools are upgraded into colleges or universities.

b) To implement national key programs already approved by the Prime Minister in the 2001-2005 five-year period, including the following projects on:

- Renewing programs and contents of textbooks;

- Consolidating and promoting the gains in illiteracy eradication and primary education universalization; universalizing junior secondary education;

- Training informatics cadres and introducing informatics into schools;

- Training and fostering teachers, enhancing material foundations for pedagogical schools;

- Supporting education in mountainous regions, areas inhabited by ethnic minority people and areas meeting with socio-economic difficulties;

- Increasing material foundations for schools, general technical training and vocational guidance centers, building a number of key universities and intermediate vocational schools;

- Enhancing the vocational training capability.

Besides, to implement the projects on sending people abroad for study and/or research in countries with advanced sciences and technologies with State budget money, which have already been approved by the Government.

c) To map out and implement the projects on:

- Renewing educational administration;

- Finalizing mechanisms and policies on educational socialization;

- Fostering talents in the national education system;

- Restructuring the human resource training system;

- Teaching foreign languages at schools

d) To effect stage one and part of stage two of the planning on university and college network:

- Elaborating and deploying the scheme on renewal of tertiary education;

- Elaborating and deploying the scheme on renewal of teachers’ and lecturers’ training;

- Reviewing and reorganizing the management and organization of training at non-public universities, open universities, on-the-job training establishments;

- Effecting the management decentralization to schools;

- Concentrating on building two national universities and a number of other key universities; opening more universities and colleges according to planning when all the conditions on quality assurance and establishment of schools are met.

e) To raise the percentage of State budget expenditure on education to at least 18% by 2005.

f) To review, draw experiences from and make proposals on necessary adjustments of specific objectives, solutions and action programs through the practical implementation of stage one.

Stage two: From 2006 to 2010

This stage will focus on stepping up the development and raising the quality of education in order to attain the strategic objectives and specific targets; to complete the long-term 10-year program on universalization of junior secondary education, the planning on university and college networks, vocational training programs, human resource training programs, talent- fostering programs; develop the national, modern and mass education; to initially build a learning society; to make our education soon catch up with the education of developed countries in the region.

To raise the percentage of State budget expenditure on education to at least 20% by 2010.-