Chapter 5: Vietnam’s Technical Education and Vocational Training Sector

Between 1975 and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the late 1980s-early 1990s the objective of the newly formed government of Vietnam was to reunify the country’s two completely different economic and social structures under a single party with a single command economy. This bureaucratic centralism led to economic stagnation and by 1986 both social and economic reforms were required and, in turn, introduced. As economic reforms have progressed, it has become clear that this doi moi economic reform policy has, by 2003, almost fully moved the country into a market-and a globally-based economic system. Through the technical education and vocational education (TEVT) sector’s two key ministries—Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) and the Ministry of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs (MoLISA)¹—a number of sector issues and challenges have been identified.