1. Education System and Human Development of Vietnam
2. Vocational Education of Vietnam 

     The Senate Standing Committee on Education exchanged ideas with Professor 
Dr. Dao Trong Thi, Chairman of the Standing Committee on Culture, Education, Youth and Juvenile, Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The summary of this exchange is as follows. 
     - The Vietnamese Government emphasizes on teaching foreign languages by allocating the budget exceeding 3 million baht to organize programmes to develop foreign languages skills of Vietnamese students during their primary and early secondary education because foreign languages development will help Vietnam enter the international community efficiently. At the same time, Vietnamese students are more interested to study foreign languages because it will increase their opportunity to land a job and have a better career. In the past, the most popular language for students was Russian followed by English but currently English is the most popular followed by Russian, French, German and Chinese. Foreign languages education of Vietnam do not only emphasize on reading nor writing but will also develop listening and speaking skill with a goal for every Vietnamese student to be able to communicate with foreigners.
     - Currently, there is quite a bit of Vietnamese students who are interested to learn Thai language and there are universities in Vietnam that have Thai language classes for them. For example, Hanoi University coordinates with Mahasarakham University and established Thai Language and Cultural Centre. At the same time, there is an increase in interests from Thai students who will travel to Vietnam to learn Vietnamese language funded either by themselves or through government scholarships. Therefore, there will be an increase in demand for both Thai and Vietnamese languages if both governments can increase their education budget for students. Moreover, there is also an increase in students from Japan, South Korea, Laos and Cambodia to learn Vietnamese language. 
     - The Thai government emphasizes on dialects as both Yawi and Melayu languages are being used in the 3 southern provinces of Thailand. Also, schools in the aforementioned provinces open classes to teach Islamic studies. Simultaneously, the Vietnamese government also emphasizes on dialects from each region.  Vietnam has 54 ethnic groups with their own speaking and writing language which are different from Vietnamese language. Therefore, the government gave opportunities for local schools to consider opening classes to teach both Vietnamese language and dialects. Nevertheless, the problem that follows is children from the ethnic groups are not able to continue their studies due to the education system or normal classes use Vietnamese language to teach. Hence, the Vietnamese government is trying to solve the aforementioned issue by supporting local schools to teach both Vietnamese language together with dialects. Furthermore, the Vietnamese Government supports ethnic group students covering the cost for them to study in tutoring schools that have characteristics similar to boarding schools and also helps them with their application to enter higher education by giving special rights or extra points on top of the real test scores. For example, the average Vietnamese students need a minimum score of 55 points to enter higher education, but ethnic group students only need a score of 8 – 10. Moreover, the government has special scholarships specifically for ethnic group students to share their knowledge and capability to develop their local town. 
     - At the present, although there are continuous cooperation and activities exchanged with Thailand, the cooperation between the Thai government and Vietnamese government to enter the ASEAN community is still not thorough and does not cover every sector. If one compares the cooperation and exchange between Japanese and Vietnamese government, it shows that students from both countries have high interest in exchange between each other. Either way, Vietnamese government are prepared to enter the ASEAN Community through many channels such as creating opportunities for students, teachers and professors to have participation and create a network to organize activities related to sports and culture of ASEAN countries. In order to do such matter, the Vietnamese government is allocating a budget to support different programmers as well as receiving financial aid from international countries to organize such activities for example the Summer Exchange Program between Vietnam and Singapore and the Ship for Southeast Asian and Japanese Youth Program. Either way, the committee hopes both Thai and Vietnamese Government will strengthen their cooperation to organize creative activities between each other because both countries are next door neighbors as it makes travel convenient. 
     - Education Law that have been enforced since 2005 prescribes that the government must allocate 20 per cent of the government budget grant for education. Furthermore, in 2020, the Vietnamese government plans to develop the education for students to have skills and knowledge to meet the demands of the labor market to develop industrial and service sectors because the aforementioned sectors will be the vital foundation to increase the gross domestic product. Concurrently, Vietnamese government emphasizes on the development of the agriculture sector to be more modern to avoid the lack of labor force that may happen in the future. 

     The Senate Standing Committee on Education had a meeting and exchanged views with Mr. Pham Van Dai, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training. Summary is as follows. 
     - Primary school education of Vietnam teaches 8 subjects, divided into 5 class periods per day and 45 minutes per class period. On the other hand, secondary education teaches 12 subjects and is divided into 5 class periods per half day. The reason why schools teach only half day is due to the small amount of teachers having to teach a large amount of students in Hanoi. The ration between teachers and students in each grade is 1 – 5 teachers per 35 students in elementary schools and 2 teachers per 45 students in secondary schools.  Therefore, schools in Hanoi have to divide their classes into two periods, morning and afternoon, where the morning period will teach academic knowledge as the afternoon period will emphasize on practice or sports skills. 
     - There are many tutoring institutes in Hanoi because students need to increase their knowledge and capabilities to compete for further study in the higher education level. Therefore, students who study half a day are able to further study subjects that are taught in normal school curriculum, such as foreign languages and computer skills among others. The expense to study in the aforementioned institutes is approximately 20,000 Dong or 35 Baht per hour. 
     - The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) is responsible to formulate a policy for the whole education system in every level of the country to manage and operate the education system in Vietnam. Furthermore, MOET has the duty to evaluate the quality of the education of schools and education institutes nationwide. There are difference in building schools, searching for education personnel, as well as allocating budget to manage newly built schools between each level of education. For example, MOET is responsible for elementary and higher education nationwide, the Office of Education is responsible for the high school education and vocational schools of each province and local education administration organizations are responsible for junior high school and primary school education in their administrative areas. 
     - Vietnamese students that have received their high school diploma can choose to pursue their education in the higher level such as universities or vocational schools. Furthermore, Hanoi also has 2 – 3 open universities with similar characteristics as Ramkhamhaeng University of Thailand. Moreover, there are educational centres for students who have missed the opportunity to pursue higher education. Majority of high school students who pursue their education in the university level are interested in financial economics, political science in international relations and law, which is different from Thai students who have good grades are interested in medicine and engineer. 
     - Educational accessibility of Vietnamese students are still very unequal. Students in Hanoi or other big cities in Vietnam receive better education compared to students in upcountry. One of the reasons is because the financial condition of a family in the city are able to support their children through higher education while students from upcountry tend to be from a low income family and does not have the monetary capacity to study in big cities that are expensive. The government is trying to solve the aforementioned issue by allocating budget to send teachers from Hanoi or big cities to schools in upcountry. Either way, developing education in the local level to be equal to the education in Hanoi will be difficult, since the life style, geography, culture and livelihood between people living in the city and upcountry are different. The government emphasizes in increasing technology to be utilized in education by supporting each school to have computer classes in the curriculum.

     The Senate Standing Committee on Education had a meeting and exchanged ideas with Mr. Nguyen Quoc Binh, School Principal and Deputy Principal for international affairs. Summary is as follows. 
     - In the early period after Vietnam experienced the war, the government emphasized in creating an education institute and built Viet Duc High School in 1955 supported by Former Eastern Germany. For the next 50 years, Viet Duc High School produced many capable personnel that helped the country such as Mr. Nguyen Sing Hung, President of the Parliament of Vietnam and former Ministers, and national level popular artists among others. 
     - Currently, Viet Duc High School has 46 classes with 2,200 students. On average, there are 700 graduates per year. This school, other than teaching students under the policy provided by MOET, also emphasizes in teaching foreign languages to students. The school teaches English, German and Japanese languages with native teachers or with equipment received from the respective countries such as Germany that sent language equipment to the school. Moreover, the school evaluates students who have good grades to be considered to continue their studies in Germany. 
     - On the matter regarding cooperation on international education. Vietnamese schools have exchange programs with schools in the United States and Japan exchanging both teachers and students. Foreign students who have been exchanged to Viet Duc High School will stay in a homestay with a Vietnamese family to deeply understand the life style of Vietnamese people and quickly develop Vietnamese language. In regards to cooperation on education between ASEAN countries, the Vietnamese school supports students to do different activities related to ASEAN. In 2012 mid-October, the school sent students to attend an arts and culture show in Indonesia. There are no concrete cooperation between Thailand and Viet Duc High School but the school believes that Thailand will develop her education system well. Therefore, once ASEAN countries are able to integrate the ASEAN framework, it will surely help some Thai schools to be able to conduct activities together with Viet Duc High School. 
     - Viet Duc High School receives its budget from the central government which supports the school 4 million Vietnamese dong or 6,250 baht per student. 70 per cent is allocated to hire from teachers to personnel in the school and another 30 per cent is allocated for activities within the school. 
     - The process to consider a person qualified to be the principle of any school has many rules and procedures. Teachers must show their knowledge and have a gratifying research. Then, the school board will consider that particular teacher if he or she has the capability to develop into a principle. Usually, the school principle will be in position for 2 terms, 5 years per term, and will rotate to be a principle of another school. 

     The Senate Standing Committee on Education had a meeting and exchanged views with Mr. Anuson Chinvanno, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Thailand to Hanoi. Summary is as follows. 
     - The public health of Vietnam is still underdeveloped due to low amount of medicinal personnel. This happens because studying medicine is very expensive while the reward of this career is low. This is the opposite for those who study trade and business administration which is popular among students. 
     - The financial and banking system in Vietnam lacks reliability and security. Therefore the majority of Vietnamese people reserve their money in US dollars or collect gold in the house more than keeping their money in the bank. 
     - The economic development of Vietnam is continuously changing. In the year 2011, Vietnam was in a major deficit in trade together with the government low asset while experiencing inflation. The government therefore searched for solutions by collecting money from government enterprise that kept their money in a foreign currency. By doing so, Vietnam accumulated 20 billion US dollars in her reserve funds. 
     - In regards to education development of Vietnam, the central government tries to allocate budget for education but the amount of schools and educational personnel are still limited while there is a big increase in the amount of student. Therefore, there is insufficient amount of rooms available for the amount of students. The Ministry of Education proposes for secondary schools to divide the period to teach between morning and afternoon, enabling students who do not study in their usual time are capable to enroll in other classes in tutoring schools such as foreign languages, science, art or musical instruments among others. 
     - Vietnam emphasizes on teaching foreign languages because the country believes that having the knowledge is an important tool to have in a career for the future. Nevertheless, foreign language skill of Vietnamese citizen does not excel that much more than those of Thai citizens. Multiple Medias say Vietnamese citizens are better than Thai citizens in regards to foreign languages but that may not be true. Nonetheless, the advantage Vietnamese students have above Thai students are their determination and their braveness to answer questions. Currently, many reputable universities in Thailand and Vietnam have agreed to cooperate in exchanging professors and students such as between Thammasat University and Hanoi University, which is continuously supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand. 
     - Comparing to Thailand, Vietnam still is not that active in entering the ASEAN Community within 2015. Though the ambassador of Vietnam visited schools in the northern region of Thailand and saw Thai students prepared a show, cooked food and dressed the ASEAN style that has never been initiated in schools in Vietnam. Furthermore, the Strategic Plan on Manpower Development 2010 – 2020 is following the plan of the Assembly on Political and Economic Development of Vietnam as it should follow the Plan on Manpower Development to be more consistent with the ASEAN Community. 

Views and Suggestions from the Study Visit
     In regards to promoting international cooperation on education, the Standing Committee sees that the government should prescribe a policy for the Ministry of Education to allocate budget to further support programmes that exchange student, teachers and professors between Thailand and Vietnam in order to strengthen the relationship between the two countries. Moreover, it is an important root in creating the sense of the ASEAN Community. In regards to international trade and investment, the government should prescribe policies for different ministries to disseminate information related to Vietnam to the private sector, students and people for the aforementioned group to thoroughly understand the country. Furthermore, the government should assign the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Commerce to promote and support the private sector of Thailand to increase the export of products to Vietnam in order to prevent the loss of fame of Thai products in Vietnam or prevent competitors in the market taking over Thai products. Furthermore, there should be a policy and measure to promote and support an expansion of Thai investment in Vietnam, especially in medicine, education and monetary banking. In regards to education, the Ministry of Education should be responsible to expand opportunities of education in every level for ethnic groups and minorities in Thailand to develop the population that have the quality of equal to the majority of the students in the country. 

Keywords    Vietnam, Education, Vocational Education, Education Development, Foreign Languages 

Pillar        Socio-Cultural