1 Tradition

Vietnam is a country with a long tradition of education. Through 4000-year history of building and defending the country, with many immigrants and feudal war, Vietnamese education is by blending folk culture as well as foreign influences. Oldest influence is probably cultural Confucianism. To this day the values of Confucianism is still preserved as five virtues: nhan (kindness toward others), nghia (understanding one’s duty), le (knowing how to relate to those under and over you in the social hierarchy), tri (knowledge), and tin (trustworthiness).

2 Changing of Thinking from Effects of Globalization

Besides affected by Confucianism, Vietnam has been also greatly influenced by the education of Europe such as France and Russia and the United States. The education also helped advanced VIETNAM achievements for the development of scientific-technical for country. VIETNAM education gradually moved from an education with a feudal backwardness into an advanced education and more modernization.

Since 1986 a profound socioeconomic policy change has taken place in Vietnam: the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy. Thus, Vietnam has become one of the many economies now classified as a transitional economy. From 1992 to 2003, the average GDP per year of Vietnam increases to 6–7 %. Among that, the labor contributes about 60–65 % increase in GDP. Vietnam has had considerable success, especially in increasing the size of the education sector.

The education renovation in that time was the changing of thinking system from subsidize to marketing. Absolutely, it was a process of thinking change. The success of economic renovation has pushed education to change. The idea of democracy in education has been developed.

With the influence of globalization, Vietnam is being brought into the process of democratization. It is possible to observe the following shifts in the emphasis on higher education:

  • From meeting human resource demand for state organizations and enterprises to meeting human resource demand for a multi-sector market economy

  • From relying solely on state budget for the provision of higher education to multiple sources of funding

  • From centralized planning in university admission and training to decentralized planning at the provincial and sector level

  • From offering government financial scholarship to requiring students to pay tuition fees.

  • From narrow specialization in specialized institutes to broad-based education in comprehensive universities

  • From training for state-allocated job employment to lifelong learning gearing for occupational changes throughout one’s lifetime

3 Successes and Challenges

After more than 25 years of innovation, Vietnamese education also has not only achieved certain successes but also accompanied by numerous challenges.

Scale education has developed quite strong in number and moved from elite education to mass, for example, in higher education during the period 2001–2011, an increase from 918,228 to 2,162,106 students. In 2011, there are 163 universities and 223 colleges (more than doubled since 2001) (MOET), but they do not retain the quality requirements. The problem seems that the relationship between size and effectiveness of training has not found a proper solution.

Education has international orientation, but comparative studies seriously in order to find the most appropriate model for VIETNAM education have not really been interesting. In addition, in an era of globalization, to successfully integrate, we need to understand, and respect the rules of the game, first of all the rules, standards, and international practices. But the most common standards for facilities, teaching staff, for admission to master’s, doctoral and evaluation of scientific research work, reviews of Master and doctor, selection, evaluation Professor, Associate Professor, evaluating etc. are not in compliance with international standards, lack of objectivity, lack of scientific basis (Hoang.T)

Social policy education helped VIETNAM education and richer diversity in academic year 2008–2009, the and percentage of students in nonpublic institutions on general students is 13.3 % (up from 11. 8 % in 2000) (MOET), but the government has been very confused for policy-making as well as the management for type of private institutions. Because VIETNAM has not been through the capitalist stage, so it lacks of big capitalists. There are no investors who have the potential to build universities of international standard. Therefore generally the most nonpublic schools and private universities in VIETNAM are very small and weak. They can hardly compete with public schools, which are state sponsored. Besides, management work of government to maintain harmony between the intellectual education for operating with financial interests of investors in the nonpublic schools is still very difficult to solve.

The management and human resources development is still inadequate. The structure of Vietnamese human resources is the reverse pyramid—engineer degree more than workers. Plan of branch division at the high school through many revisions has not met the requirements, not to satisfy the learners, needs and demands of socioeconomic modernization. According to Pham Chi Lan, former vice president of Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Vietnam, the human resources of Vietnam do not currently meet the requirements of human resources with international competitiveness such as specific levels, fitness, professionalism, discipline, and adaptability to change.

One thing that public opinion pressing wider cheating are blatantly still exists although the MOET has set many policies and measures for handling.

Concerned about the quality of higher education in the country, many students choose to study overseas. Only in the United States (LTHy), number of Vietnamese students has increased from 2,022 in 2000 to 12,823 in 2009 (source: Institute for Vietnamese Culture & education (IVCE), New York, 04.08.2010). Just take the average cost of $ 30,000 / student / academic year, the 2008–2009 school year, the amount from Vietnam to the USA for overseas study students is about $ 30,000 x 12,823 = $ 384,690,000 / year. And perhaps the total cost of Vietnamese overseas study in all other countries is approximately nearly $ 1 billion / year. It was approximately two-thirds of the cost of higher education / college both public and private schools in the country! (P.D.N.Tien).

Besides the initial achievements, the weaknesses in quality and efficiency, structural development, for social justice has accumulated, which challenges economic and social change than ever

4 Causes of Weakness

The fundamental cause of the persistent weakness is partly due to the global recession affect to VIETNAM, led to the financial shortfall for the education sector. In addition, economic model-oriented market socialist VIETNAM selection means that there are no practical examples to follow. Therefore, Vietnam must find own answers through the process of exploration, experimentation, and creativity. And from that subjective reasons are the lack of an overall vision and lack of a uniform plan, resulting in a patchwork reform. Educational management mechanisms focus primarily on the relationship between the State and the school but lack interest in two new areas that are the market and civil society (Pham, D.N.T). The mechanism is necessary to reform from the state to monitor and control autonomy for more schools. Innovation requires synchronize management of teachers, teaching and learning methods, curriculum-textbooks, scientific research towards international standard and more practical, more effective, transparent financial management.

5 Necessity of second Renewal for Educational Management

Now, when the country has become a middle-income country, again deep integration with the world, the economic system-society becomes more complex and diverse than ever before. Education itself has also been on the scale of dramatic development in terms of the network of schools, with higher requirements for quality and efficiency, various policy systems and expanding international relations International integration on education puts Vietnamese education with new challenges. VIETNAM education to the 2nd renewal has been stronger and more comprehensive than the first innovation in 1980. Innovation and comprehensive basic education and training from the perception of innovation approach, innovation conditions, the solution, the core, elements of systematizing process of education creates quality products as well as orients towards standardization, modernization, socialization, democratization and international integration and all changes must be suitable with the new stage of national and regional development (Education action Plan period 2011 - 2016, MOET).

6 Conclusion

With VIETNAM, international integration is both an opportunity and a challenge and is also the only way to VIETNAM development. Educational innovation, especially innovation management toward a comprehensive internationalization, is opening up a horizon of hope for VIETNAM and education for future integration, also the contribution of VIETNAM with the region.