Education Reform Context and Process in Cambodia

Abstract

This chapter explores the developments of Vietnam's basic education policy since 1990, and the roles of foreign donors. The priority of basic education was agreed in an international consensus at the World Conference on Education for All (EFA) in Jomtien, Thailand, sponsored by the World Bank (WB), UNESCO, and other agencies in 1990. The Vietnamese government participated in the conference way before the lifting of American economic sanctions and the official resumption of Western aid in 1994, which gave the government an impetus for basic education development. The year 2000 marked the assessment of the EFA movement in the past decade at the World Education Forum in Dakar. As a Forum participant, Vietnam gave itself a satisfying rating; however, it did not reduce the speed of basic education development. It added lower secondary education as a fourth area in its EFA targets, and aimed at not only expanding educational quantities but improvement of quality of education under EFA as a central framework. In the meantime, the EFA Plan of Action up to 2000 served as a framework to start virtual aid coordination in Vietnam's education sector. This was in line with the international trends of the increasing emphasis on partnership and aid coordination. Further, the new EFA Plan of Action in 2003 facilitated the start of a new phase of aid coordination in education.