Higher Education in Vietnam 1986–1998: Education in Transition to a New Era?

Abstract

This chapter considers the relevance of the concept of transition as it relates to the higher education sector in Vietnam in the immediate post-doi moi period, 1986–1998. It examines in turn the keys areas that were being contested during this period: the direction of higher education policy, the marketisation of higher education, the curriculum and the appropriate division of authority between universities and the state, as epitomised in the 1998 Law on Education. It further argues that 1998, and the Law in particular, marked the beginning of a Vietnamese post-communist framework for higher education and the end of a series of episodes of experimentation, conservative backlash and accommodation that set the parameters for the shape and direction of Vietnamese higher education today.