Changes in vietnam education governance in the context of international integration

1 Changes in Vietnam Education Governance in the Context of International Integration Pham Do Nhat Tien National Institute of Educational Management 31 Phan Dinh Giot, Thanh Xuan, Hano

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Changes in Vietnam Education Governance

in the Context of International Integration

Pham Do Nhat Tien National Institute of Educational Management

31 Phan Dinh Giot, Thanh Xuan, Hanoi, Vietnam

Email: phamdntien@hotmail.com This paper was presented as a keynote address and published in the Proceedings of the 7th

International Conference on Educational Reform (ICER 2014) “Innovations and Good Practices in Education: Global Perspectives”, held in Hue City, Vietnam on15-16 March,

2014

Pham Do Nhat Tien, D.Sc., Scientific Council, National Institute of Education Management, Hanoi, Vietnam; research fields: educational policy, education administration, teacher development, international cooperation in education, trade in education services, comparative education

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Abstract

The process of international integration in education is creating new realities

in education with the emergence of education market on the one hand and the

building of common education spaces/areas on the other hand This necessitates the corresponding evolution of legal documents in education with some trends such as adaptation of new public management, development of regulatory frameworks in cross-border education, institutionalization towards common education spaces/areas, democratization of education, and educational measurement It is shown in this paper that with the emergence of new educational realities in Vietnam, the educational legal system is moving seemingly along the same trends, however in a patchy and

misaligned way, in favor of market mechanisms The innovation process of Vietnam education governance is still in a vicious circle due to the scarcity of resources and weaknesses of the research staff Therefore it is recommended to enhance cooperation and collaboration in view of shaping a common space of educational research in the region, capable of finding reliable and appropriate solutions for common issues of education governance which countries in the region are facing

Key words: international integration, education governance, education market, common education space, new public management

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1 Introduction

In this paper, education governance means policy, mechanism and legal framework for the organization and operation of education It is subject to the rules of the political and economical institutions of the country Therefore, before Doi moi1, Vietnam education governance was characterized by a state monopoly in education provision and a high centralization in management, with administrative orders

playing the major role in educational organization and activities Entering the Doi moi period, there was a paradigm shift in education governance That is the shift from

an administrative order-based model to a rule of law-based model, according to which the fundamental element of education governance is the legal system of education

However the process of building a legal system of education in Vietnam is hesitant and slow Until now, after 27 years of innovation, Vietnam education is still

in the period of transition from an administrative order-based model of governance to

a law-based one, wherein legal provisions were gradually established from an

experimental and incremental approach, searching step-by-step for solutions to

education’s issues through lessons learnt from practice and experiences drawn from

other countries

That leads to the undesired situation where administrative orders are still playing a dominant role in almost every level of administration, and the innovation process seems to be fallen in a vicious circle It has been even recognized at the highest level that education governance in general, the legal system of education in

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This Vietnamese term is used to designate the overall process of renovation in Vietnam, initiated from 1986 and developed continuously until now

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particular, is lagging far behind the pace of innovation in other sectors of economic development (Vietnam Communist Party [VNCP], 2009)

socio-The lag does not only negatively affect education development but also

becomes a concern and/or obstacle when the country has moved to a new stage of integration and development, which is requiring a breakthrough in human resources development In many official documents, such as the Education Development

Strategic Plan 2011-2020 (The Government, 2011) and the Draft of the Scheme on Radically and Comprehensively Innovating Education (The Government, 2013), it has been warned that weaknesses in education governance should be considered as the root cause of many other weaknesses in education

Thus, the reform of education governance is urgent and imperative According

to the above mentioned official documents, among policy tasks and measures for radically and comprehensively innovating education, governance reform was

considered as a key task And this task should be implemented towards

standardization, modernization, socialization, democratization, and international integration (VNCP, 2011)

Obviously, this reform orientation raises a broad range of important research questions which Vietnamese researchers, managers and educators should soon give the answers This paper is only referring to one aspect of the problem, that of

international integration, and will be limited in analyzing the implications of

international integration for education governance in Vietnam

With this in mind, section 2 will identify the emergence of new realities in education under the impacts of international integration This entails in section 3 the

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recognition of some international trends in innovation of education governance in response to those new realities On that basis, the current status of Vietnam education governance is analyzed in section 4, which is complemented by some concluding remarks in section 5

2 International Integration in Education and the Emergence of New Realities in

Education

International cooperation in education has moved to a new stage of

development, more and more complex That is international integration of education with two contradictory and complimentary components One is the traditional

international cooperation in education, according to which education is considered as

a public good and mutual assistance in education development is based on a profit mechanism The other new one is trade in educational services, according to which education is a tradable service and investment in education development is based on a for-profit mechanism

non-Challenges and opportunities of international integration on education have been analyzed in many forums, workshops, seminars and research papers,

international as well as domestic These analyzes indicate that a new educational thinking and new educational realities were emerging with many implications which were difficult to foresee

First and most important is the mindset change in the concept of education The concept of education as a public good, which is the cornerstone for the

development of education throughout the 20th century, has been shaken The sharp division between public good and private good, in accordance with two values 0 and

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1 in classical logic, is being reviewed Governments in the world increasingly tend to approach the public and private good issue in education under a fuzzy logic with a range of values from 0 to 1 Thus education might be considered as a pure public good in compulsory education, as a pure private good in education services provided

by for-profit educational institutions, and as a mixture of public and private good with different public-private proportions related to different levels of education, training courses, learning disciplines, modes of learning, educational institutions, and education providers

This fact leads to a new educational reality, which is the emergence of an education market This market has taken shape in the late 1980s in countries like UK, Australia, USA, New Zealand, Chile, when these countries undertook market-driven education reforms (Walford, 1996) Since 1995, with the WTO approval of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), education market was officially recognized and GATS became a supranational text paving the way for the formation

of a global education market Private education has become an explosive

phenomenon around the world in the last decade Multinational education

corporations also developed in all continents with the ambition to conquer the

education market Of course, the degrees of market penetration in education systems are different Where education is a pure public good, such as in compulsory

education, there is no market Where education is a pure private good, such as

education provided under GATS provisions, there is a market like any other services market Usually, it is a quasi-market, where educational institutions, public and private, are allowed to mobilize private and social resources, have more autonomy in

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their organization and operation, and are authorized to use competition mechanism to attract more students, but they do not engage in for-profit activities

However, in the general picture of today's education system, when the

government still plays a patron role in education provision and development,

education is still basically a public good

Thus, although the flow of education today has a trade ramification, its

mainstream remains in the course of cooperation between educational institutions as well as between nations in a non-commercial approach In response to the formation

of the education market and its unexpected effects on the global landscape of

education, a counter balance activity is stemming strongly, within each region as well

as throughout the world, to ensure that education is a public good That is the

promotion of regional cooperation as well as international cooperation in view of developing common education spaces/areas, especially in higher education

Leading the way was the Bologna process with the vision of creating the European Higher Education Area, that became reality with the Budapest-Vienna Declaration of March, 2010 Next, the Latin American and Caribbean countries took the initiative of strengthening cooperation with the European Union in view of building the ALCUE Common Higher Education Area by 2015 (VALUE White paper, 2008) Then, in 2006, ministers and senior officials from 27 countries at a meeting of Asia-Pacific Education Ministers in Brisbane, Australia issued the

Brisbane Communiqué which goals and initiatives seem to follow the Bologna Process' normative path towards the creation of a common regional higher education space (Roger, 2011) Later, in 2007, Ministers of education of the African Union

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presented an African Union Strategy for Harmonization of Higher Education

Programmes (African Union, 2007) Also in 2007, ASEAN Education Forum

unanimously approved The Thang Long Declaration, which expounded upon the need for creating an ASEAN education space on the roadmap for an ASEAN community

2015 (ASEAN Education Forum, 2007) Within that perspective, The SEAMEO RIHED, as a Regional Center for Higher Education Development, launched the initiative of creating a higher education common space by 2015 (Supachai, 2008) In this connection, it was stipulated in the Master Plan on ASEAN connectivity

(ASEAN, 2011) that building ASEAN human resources in the field of education and sstrengthening the ASEAN University Network were prioritized areas of cooperation

in education and human resources development All these processes, activities and initiatives in the spirit of cooperation towards common education spaces/areas might

be considered as a global wave capable of neutralizing the negative effects of market forces in education

Along with the region concept of common education space/area, within each country was strengthened the concept that education should be the work of everyone State still plays a major role, but education should be open to the participation of the whole society in the provision of education, as well as in the planning, monitoring and supervising the implementation of policies In this context, civil society played an increasingly active role as a partner of the state in education development,

maintaining education as a public good As a third sector manifesting interests and will of citizens, civil society not only contributes to providing educational resources, limiting the negative side of the market, but also plays a vital role in creating a

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democratic space in education It is the space in which students, parents and all those involved or interested in education to have a voice so that education policy is reliable and feasible, and the implementation of policy is monitored better and more effective

Previously, when key actors in the organization and operation of education were the state and educational institutions, education governance focused primarily

on regulating the relationships between these two entities, in which the state was both the education provider and commander Under the impact of international integration, education has made significant changes as mentioned above, which were eventually due to the presence and participation of two new actors, the market and civil society

That forced countries to re-examine their education governance, namely to amend, supplement, or even reform the legal system of education in view of adapting

to the conditions and requirements of new educational realities

Obviously, each country has its own legal framework of education associated with its political system, economic level, cultural traditions, and social characteristics However, due to the rapid spillover of ideas and lessons learnt in a globalized world, the amendment and/or supplement of educational laws, policies and regulations in the context of international integration proceeded with some following common trends

According to the OECD (2003), NPM is a new model of public management characterized by strategies borrowed from the private sector: decentralization,

management by objectives, contracting out, competition even within government, customer orientation, etc Although, the spread of NPM is a complex process, going

“A good example of the globalization process lies in the spread of NPM in higher

education In nations throughout the world the responses of systems and institutions

to globalization have been conditioned by on-going reforms to national systems, and related reforms in the organization and management of the institutions themselves, that draw on the techniques of the NPM In the last two decades these reforms have been the strongest single driver of change in many countries”

In this context, the main ideas of NPM, such as decentralization, privatization, corporatization, accountability, customer orientation, performance measurement, etc were introduced and institutionalized in the process of educational law reform of many countries (See for example Anantha, 2011; Gillard, 2011)

A fundamental way to overcome this challenge is to develop appropriate regulatory frameworks for quality assurance in cross-border education In this

context, UNESCO-APQN (2006) have provided an useful toolkit to assist policy makers in the development of appropriate regulatory frameworks in order to

maximize benefits and limit the potential drawbacks of international integration in education The toolkit presented and discussed different regulatory aspects related to providing and receiving cross-border education, explored possible options for

establishing regulatory frameworks, and gave a number of country examples which showed a strong tendency in improving legal frameworks in the context of issues of quality assurance in internationalization of education

3.3 Regulatory frameworks towards common educational spaces

A common educational space is generally understood as a regional space in which educational institutions and education managers, teachers, learners, are key actors in cooperation and collaboration to create comparable educational standards

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within the region It is formed on the basis of an infrastructure including compatible curriculum development, credit transfer system, joint structural convergence and consistency of systems, quality assurance and accreditation, and mutual recognition

of degrees and diplomas In that common educational space, cooperation and

collaboration between educational institutions are strengthened and enhanced, with priority activities that encourage the mobility of students, teachers, faculty,

researchers, through exchange programs, and promote the sharing and exchange of information and knowledge in view of improving the quality of education

As above-mentioned there is actually in international integration a strong global trend towards building common educational spaces/areas This entails within each related region the need to pay more attention to introducing legislative changes where necessary to ensure that, for example joint degrees may be awarded, national qualifications framework should be compatible, quality assurance and accreditation should be at the regional standard, etc A typical example is the

amendment/improvement process of European higher education legislation in view of achieving the objectives of the Bologna Declaration According to the UNESCO-CEPES Report (2004), new generations of policy documents and laws for higher education in European countries were evolving and reflecting a general thrust in the realization of the objectives of the Bologna Process It was recognized that countries implemented the Bologna objectives in their national policies and higher education legislation, this resulted on the one hand a growing convergence in line with the Bologna goals, and on the other hand a continuation of diversity associated with specific national contexts

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3.4 Democratization of education

As above-mentioned, with the increased role of civil society in international integration, education governance during these two last decades is moving faster to democratization This is built on two fundamental principles: the equality principle in education access and the participatory principle in policy development

Concerning the first principle, UNESCO (2001, p.3) pointed out: “The

democratization of education means that every citizen, of whatever age, and every community, have the right to learn, in order to develop self-confidence, participate in all democratic and development processes, take an active role in the information

society and find their place in the process of globalization” This requires the shift of

education systems to lifelong learning (LLL) systems, and “governance structures

within the body politic and institutions that are people-centered, gender-fair and generational-inclusive, and the creation and nurturing of environments that are conducive to critical appraisal, constructive criticism and mobilization and

organization for change” (UNESCO, 2001, p.18)

This leads naturally to the second principle, according to which it is necessary

to establish and strengthen social dialogue in policy making and education planning

In the actual context of international integration, with a lot of difficult choices and complex implications, participatory processes and consultations have a positive impact on improving the quality of education and the effectiveness of management; they are not “a panacea to resolve difficulties, but they are virtually the only

mechanisms for overcoming suspicion and establishing a positive climate for making

and implementing education policy” (UNESCO- ILO, 2006, p.8)