The development of non-public preschool and general education Vietnam: The view from local education administrators

Over the past 20 years, the system of non-public preschool and general education in Vietnam has been formed and developed, initially meeting the diverse needs of preschool and general education of learners, reduce the pressure on the public education system. Despite the initial encouraging results, the development of the non-public preschool and general education system still has many problems that needs to be solved. The picture of non-public preschool and general education is quite contrasting in terms of class and school size, resources, service quality, geographic distribution, etc. Local education administrators argue that in present the system of non-public preschool and general education is unevenly developed, polarized, under-planed, strongly influenced by short-term incentives of investors. Therefore, it is needed for macro-management measures to promote non-public preschool and general education to develop in the right direction and sustainability.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF NON-PUBLIC PRESCHOOL AND GENERAL EDUCATION VIETNAM: THE VIEW FROM LOCAL

EDUCATION ADMINISTRATORS

Assoc Prof.Dr Vu Minh Duc

ducvmneu@gmail.com Faculty of Marketing, National Economics University, Hanoi, Vietnam

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, the system of non-public preschool and general education

in Vietnam has been formed and developed, initially meeting the diverse needs of pre-school and general education of learners, reduce the pressure on the public education system Despite the initial encouraging results, the development of the non-public preschool and general education system still has many problems that needs to be solved The picture of non-public preschool and general education is quite contrasting in terms

of class and school size, resources, service quality, geographic distribution, etc Local education administrators argue that in present the system of non-public preschool and general education is unevenly developed, polarized, under-planed, strongly influenced by short-term incentives of investors Therefore, it is needed for macro-management measures to promote non-public preschool and general education to develop in the right direction and sustainability

Keywords: local educational administrators; non-public education; policy system;

preschool and general education;

1 Introduction

Over the past two decades, the system of non-public preschool and general school

in Vietnam has gained certain results, contributing to the increase in access to educational services for many people in school age Non-public preschool and general educational institutions are established and managed based on the current legal framework for education In fact, non-public educational institutions were established at all school levels and attracted a certain number of learners According to statistic from the Ministry of Education and Training, in November 2017, there is only 2,890 of nonpublic preschool and general school compared to the total of 43,672 educational institutions Currently, about 1.15 million pupils are studying in the non-public educational institutions of approximately 20.0 million pupils Thus, the rate of non-public schools now stands at 6.7% only but the proportion of students attending non-public preschool and general educational school is only 5.5% This result is much lower than the target set in the Government‘s resolutions on the development of non-public education It can be said that in general, the contribution of non-public preschool and general education school is not much and insignificant Clearly, there are still some problems in the development of the non-state education system that need to be carefully considered Evaluating non-public preschool and general school

should be considered from different perspectives of stakeholders including local (provincial and district) education administrators The purpose of this article is to provide

an overview of the current state of the non-public preschool and general education institutions (hereinafter referred to as non-public educational institutions), evaluation of local education distractors on the development of non-public educational institutions and recommendation on policies to promote the development of non-public educational institutions Vietnam in the coming time

The data used in this article are collected from governmental legal documents, reports from the Ministry of Education and Training, provincial Department of Education and Training and District level office of Education and Training in the country in last 5 years The primary data for the evaluation of provincial and district education managers was collected by qualitative research through in-depth interview with leaders of Department of Education and Training in 30 provinces and 60 districts The survey was conducted during October & November 2017

2 Overview of real situation of the non-public education system in Vietnam

Quantity and structure of non-public educational institutions

In the period from 2011 to 2017, the number of non-public education institutions has changed unconventional The number of educational institution across the country has changed but not much although it has decreased in the school year 2012- 2103 compared to the previous year and then tended to increase slightly However, the overall decline in the number of educational institutions is due to the decline of non-public educational institutions while the number of state educational institutions is on the upward trend

Figure 1 The number of educational institutions in period 2011-12 to 2016-17

Source: MOET, 2017

The contribution rate of non-public educational institutions in providing educational services to learners also change overtime and are always low (see figure 2a and figure 2b below)

42,975 42,464 42,844 43,125 43,483 43,672

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

30,000

35,000

40,000

45,000

50,000

2011- 12 2012- 13 2013 - 142014 - 15 2015-16 2016- 17

Number of non-public educational institutions Number of public educational institutions

Total of educationnal institutions

Source: calculated based on statistical reports of MOET, 2017

Figure 2a Percentage of non-public educational institutions and pupils of non-

public educational institution

Source: calculated based on statistical reports of MOET, 2017

Figure 2b Percentage of pupils of non-public educational institutions

The percentage of non-public educational institutions has declined in the period from 2011 to 2013 and has since tended increase slowly and only accounted for 6.62% of the total number of institutions in 2017 At the same time, number of students studying in non-public education establishments have tendency to change with the number of educational institutions but the propotion of number of students attending non-public educational institutions is only 5.57% equivalent to 1,147,336 students in such the main part is prechoolers with 836,153 students

The structure of educational institutions reported by Department of Education and Training also reflects the concentration of non-public educational institutions at pre-school level Up to 96.5% of non-public educational institutions are preschool institutions The rest, 2.36% are high school, 0.85% is primary school and secondary school is only 0.29% Over the past few years, the number of non-public preschool institutions has increased much and rapidly,while the number of non-public primay school has risen lightly and slowly However, the number of educational institutions as well as the number of pupils

7.54%

6.62%

6.53%

5.28%

5.57%

0.00%

1.00%

2.00%

3.00%

4.00%

5.00%

6.00%

7.00%

8.00%

2011- 12 2012- 13 2013 - 14 2014 - 15 2015-16 2016- 17

Number of non-public educational institutions in total

Number of pupils of non-public educational institutions

in total

23.17%

16.73%

14.25% 14.54% 14.53%

16.44%

0.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

2011- 12 2012- 13 2013 - 14 2014 - 15 2015-16 2016- 17

Percentage of pupils of non-public preschool

Percentage of pupils of non-public primary school Percentage of pupils of non-public secondary school Percentage of pupils of non-public high school

attending non-public educational institutions are concentrated mainly in big cities like Hanoi, Hochiminh and Danang

The data collected from the reports of 55 provincial department of education and training has also showed conssistent results with a slight increase in the number of non-public institutions at all levels Of these, the number of non-non-public preschool and secondary school has increased by 1.5 times, while the number of non-public primary and high schools has increased slightly although the number of non-public high school has been established qutie recently but many people-founded education institutions have been converted into public ones instead of being converted into private school ones

By geographical area, non-public educational institutions are concentrated in economically developed regions and high population density such as Red River Delta region and South East Specifically, the number of non-public educational institutions in the Red River Delta region accounted for 37.73%, the South Cetral region accounted for 22.71% of the total non-public educational institution while the North West region accounted for only 0.97% and the North Central was 3.34%

Teachers working for non-public educational institutions

According to statistical reports of the Ministry of Education and Training, the number of teachers in preschool and general education institutions across the country ranged from 1.03 million in 2011 gradually increased 1.12 million in 2014 After that, it has dropped somewhat in 2015 and continued to rise slightly to 1.176 million in 2017 At the same time, the number of teachers working in the non-public education sector has changed but not the same direction Before slight increasing in 2014, the number of teachers in non-public education sector decreased in the period 2011-2013 and kept an upward trend during the past 3 years (see figure 3) Currently, there are over 84 thousand teachers are working in the non-public educational sector accouting for 7.16% of the total teachers across the country The rate of students/teacher in non-public education is 13.63 compared to 17.83 of the rate of student number/teacher in public education

Source: MOET, 2017

Figure 3 Number of teachers working in public and non-public education

0

200000

400000

600000

800000

1000000

1200000

1091122

Number of teachers in public education (persons) Number of teachers in non-public educational institutions (persons)

As reported by the Department of Education and Training, along with an increase in the number of public educational institutions, the number of teachers working in non-public education sector has increased rapidly over the past six years Data obtained from reports of provincial Department of Education and Training on the number of teacher has pointed out that the number of non-public preschool teachers has increased faster while the number of teachers working for non-public general school has increased slowly and has a small part Most of the teachers in non-public educational sector is female teachers In particular, female teachers account for 90% of teachers in primary and secondary school and 99% in non-public prechool institutions However, the percentage of female teachers in high school slightly decreased to 68.64% The propotion of number of full-time teacher in non-public schools is often low as most non-non-public schools could not recruit enough students

Infrastructure of non-public educational institutions

In general, the system of facilities of non-public educational institutions is relatively completed However, there are significant differences between non-public educational institutions in different locations In the urban areas and economically developed areas, the facilities of non-public preschool and general schools are fully invested such as classrooms, funtion rooms, libraries, gym and so on On the contrary, in rural areas with the economic situation is not well devwloped, the facilities of non-public educational institutions are quite limited and not synchronous especially in independent private children groups The below table presents the number of classrooms by different quality levels

Table 1 Number of classrooms Number of solid

classrooms

Number of semi-permanent classrooms

Number of temporary classrooms

Percentage of temporary classrooms

Public educati-on

Non-public educat-ion

Public educat-ion

Non-public educat-ion

Public

educati-on

Non-public educat-ion

Public

educati-on

Non-public educat-ion

Source: MOET, 2017

Organization of management

At the preschool level, there are some types in organizing educational institutions such us kindergartens, pre-schools, nursery schools, independent child care groups, independent and so on Non-public general schools now include the type of primary

schools, secondary schoools, uper secondary schools and inter-shools including primary and secondary schools, primary, secodary and high schools Over the past two to thee years, the type of inter-schools including all levels from primary school to high school has been established in many provinces and cities

The structure of organisation of non-public educational insitutions has been formed

in 2 common forms First, the owner is individual investor who is also the principal In some cases, the pincipals have been hired by owners Second, for institution owned by companies or social organisations, the organisation structure is comprised Board of Directors/Board of Members or School Coucil, Borad of Rustees, professional sections and management departments

Financial situation of non-public educational institutions

Financial revenues of non-public educational institutions are formed from the collections of school fees, fees, state budget support, grants, and other revenues Of these, tution fees account for a large proportion of the most of non-public edcational institutions Revnues from tution fees account for 79.9% of total financial revenues in non-public primary schools in 2016 Similarly, this porportion of non-public inter-school and kindergartens is 74.75% and 74.3% respectively In terms of finacial expenditures, payments of non-public educational institutions include such principal items as expences for infrastructure constuction, recurrent expenditures, salaries, alary allowances, bunuses, insurance, facitiy repairs, tax obligations, etc In which regular expenses, expenses for salaries and infrastructure are expenses which account for large proportion

As reported by non-publis educational institutions, financial revenues and expenditures continue to rise in the period between 2011-2017 for all non-public educational institutions However, the balance of financial revenues and expenditures in school groups by grade level is different Most of preschool and primary schools are not able to balance while non-public secondary and high schools have made up for the costs and are profitable in the priod of time form 2011 to present except 2014

1 Research Method

To collect necessary data on assessing the development of non-public educational institution from local education administrators, a quality study has been done Specifically, in-depth interviews were conducted within 30 selected provinces across country including

12 provinces in North 8 provinces in Central and 10 provinces in South In each province,

2 districts have been selected In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were conducted at the offices of the provincial department of education and training

Firstly, in-depth interviews have been conducted with the director/deputy director

of the Department of Education and Training The issues covered in the in-depth interview included (1) assessment of the context and potential for the development of non-public educational institutions in the locality, (2) assessment of the legal framework for forming and managing non-public educational institutions, (3) evaluating operation and performances of non-public educational institutions and (4) what could be done to promote

the operation and sustainable development of the non-public educational institutions 29 records of the leaders‘ opinions have been completed due to the absent of leaders of Haiphong Department of Education and Training Secondly, in-depth interviews with the director/deputy director of the District Education and Training Officers were conducted Within the interview,

4 main themes have been covered including (i) assessment of the context and potential for development of the non-public educational institutions, (ii) assessment of the legal framework for forming and managing non-public educational institutions, (iii) evaluate the operation and performance of the non-public educational institutions and (iv) what should be done to promote the operation and sustainable development of the non-public educational institutions The result is 60 records of discussion Finally, total of 89 records were edited and analysed with the help of Nvivo 7 software

2 Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendation

From the perspective of local education administrators, the non-public education system has been established and had made a definite contribution to local education However, the number of educational institutions and the number of pupils enrolled at all levels of the non-public education system is very low compared to the target It could be said that there are many shortcoming, disadvantages and inadequacies in the development

of the non-public educational institutions in provinces across country in the past 5 years The following is key findings on the assessment of local education administrators

(1) Non-public educational institutions are formed late and developed unevenly

In terms of geography, most of non-public educational institutions are concentrated

in big cities In the provinces, the non-public education institutions are distributed mostly

in the central area of the province of which high quality -high tuition fee are focused on satisfying demands of high and relative high-income families In large cities such as Hanoi, Hochiminh, the number of non-public schools are concentrated in the suburbs but not many pupils are studying in those schools due to the low demands and difficulties in access Especially, in remote and mountainous areas, almost all non-public educational institutions are absent The size of institutions is uneven most of which are small and medium sized institutions Many owners of non-public institution want to increase their investment but they have limited land, finance and human resources Investors are not easy

to access capitals from commercial banks They also are difficult to attract teachers and to find land for construction

In terms of structure, the number of non-public preschool account for high proportions while there are few primary, secondary and high schools Nonetheless, non-public kindergarten in residential areas near industrial parks are often overcrowded due to very high demand for child care In contrast, non-public generation school in rural areas could not enroll enough students for example Hai Duong, Thua Thien Hue, Nam Dinh, etc

(2) The system of non-public educational institutions is strongly polarized

In one pole, a small number of the nonpublic education institutions is the high-quality schools These schools are concentrated in central area of the provinces and cities Students are taught in the best possible conditions about the education program, the

teachers, the facilities and the general education environment However, tuition fee is several times higher than the average for non-public schools The demand for high-quality schools to grow rapidly over the last two to three years has promoted investors, most companies are geared toward this segment This is the brightest part of the non-public education picture

In the other pole, a large proportion of the non-public educational institutions are medium and low quality educational institutions that meet the learning needs of children of low and medium income families Most of those schools are distributed in rural areas The private kindergarten and private independent child care groups are particularly high in this group In fact, operation of the private independent child care group is experiencing inadequacies leading to misconception about the development of non-public educational institutions

(3) The performance of non-public educational institutions is strongly dominated by motivations for high profitability

Owners of non-public educational institutions are individual who tend to want to recover capital in the short term and make quickly profit This often leads to violation in the establishment and management of the school The most common violations are the size

of the class that exceed the required numbers of pupils, the shortage of facilities Whereas owners of non-public general education institutions are enterprises which have advantage

of investment capital and managerial organisations, they are not under pressure to make quick profits from education It is possible to accept low profit to apply the tuition fees that are appropriate to the ability customers‘ payment On the other hand, regulations on establishment and management are followed more fully and seriously

(4) Basically, the standard education program promulgated by the Ministry of Education and Training has been applied fully in non-public educational institutions

Educational programs of high quality institutions are often supplemented and adjusted

by reference to programs in developed countries Modern teaching and learning methods are applied focusing on the skills and foreign languages for students Based on the standard program, some propriate subjects are added in high quality non-public schools also

By contract, non-public educational institutions that target to popular customers tend to cut some extra subjects in the programs concentrating to core subjects and main activities in the school Especially, independent private child groups are most likely to provide care services only without teaching during the children attending in the classroom

(5) The staff and teachers of non-public educational institutions are unstable unequally in terms of quantity and quality

Most of teachers are young, newly graduated from pedagogical colleges/universities have no experience to teach Especially, the quality of teachers working in independent private child group is very low which does not meet the requirement of raising children

On the other side, teachers of the high quality non-public schools have been selected carefully and trained continuously during working for schools They are often under a lot

of pressure from teaching and take care children but they are also paid relatively well In contrast, non-public schools in the lower levels often face to the volatility of their teachers

in terms of quantity Most of the teachers are lack of experience, low professional capability They do not want to stick to long-term non-public schools

(6) Activities of non-public educational institutions

In one side, non-public preschools are quite good at enrollment and attract parents and students They are easy to achieve the target number of students in each school year while the availability of services is limited due to the lack of necessary resources of the non-public preschools In the other side, most of the non-non-public general educational institutions are difficult to enroll students in all levels except for a few non-public schools that they are reputable and well-quality that soon assert their position in the education market

In term of finance, the activities of non-public educational institutions are not good

as the institutions expected The number of non-public educational institutions operating in good financial condition is little The rest is not easy to balance financial revenue and expenditure Some schools have financial resources and good financial results while the rest is difficult to get better financial results Even though, several owners of non-public general schools have looked for other opportunities outside education sector

(7) The development of the non-public educational institutions is influenced by number of factors including macro-environment, the sector environment and the internal education system

In such, the most important factors that effect to activities of the non-public educational institutions are growth of economy, legal system, perception of learners on non-public education and motivation of investors According to assessment of the local education leaders, the legal documents regulating the operation of non-public educational institutions are still inadequate First, the lack of guiding documents, the inconsistency of the document system and the lack of master plan for the development of non-public education are quite serious Barriers to the development of non-public education are also of concern Some of the barriers to be covered include: (i) the distinction between public and non-public educational institutions in providing government support; difficulties in accessing capital and land, (ii) procedure of establishing non-public educational institutions is troublesome and not clear; regulation on the organinsation of non-public schools is unconstitutional

Another factor is the misperception of non-public educational institutions that leads to the prejudices of both learners and teachers in non-public educational institutions In many provinces and cities, people have the notion that only their children can not go to public school so they would choose the non-public schools as a substituted solution The disparity

in the quality of education between public and non-public educational institutions along with higher costs of non-public schools that has made difficulty to change these prejudices

Building and developing the non-public educational instructions in the national education system is the right policy of the Party and the State The non-public education is integral part of national education system Thanks to the development of non-public educational institution, learners have more opportunities to study in schools that suit their needs and abilities Non-state educational institutions not only reduce the pressure on the public education system but more importantly, create competition among educational

institutions However, the contribution of non-state educational institutions is very modest compared to the potentials for development and the needs of learners There are still a lot

of problems with the development of non-public educational institutions such as small scale of institutions, unequal distribution in term of geographic, quality of teachers, etc It could be said that a lot of reasons that cause the above development status These include: improper perceptions about the non-state educational institutions of learners, teachers and managers; barriers from state policies on development of non-public educational institutions

in which barriers from state policies are very significant and adversely effect to development

of non-public educational institutions The following are some recommendations to improve the policy system to promote non-public educational institutions in the coming time

Firstly, it is necessary to formulate a master plan for development of non-public

educational institutions in the long-term; set up orientations and priorities for development

of non-state educational institutions; fundamentally overcome the disequilibrium of supply and demand of services of public education; encourage the establishment of non-public educational institutions in areas where the demands for education services are high such as large cities and economically developed regions

Secondly, eliminate discrimination between public and non-public schools in

accessing the resources for development The non-public educational institutions should be sure to access easily the main resources as land, capital, Learners and persons working

in the non-public education sector must be treated equally and fairly compared to public education sector

Thirdly, perfect the system of documents guiding the implementation of legal

documents adjusted establishing and operating non-public educational institutions to improve the consistency, detail, transparency and clarity It is also aimed to minimize the arbitrary application from regulatory authorities Completing guidelines on access to land resources and tax policies for non-public educational institutions could be considered as a priority

Fourthly, to complete the existing legal documents on the administrations of

non-state educational institutions in the educational program, the organizational structure for management, the regulation on enrollment, examination and accreditation of quality

Fifthly, to improve regulations on insurance social security, commendation,

incentive for people working in non-public education sector

Finally, state investment for education should be determined on the number of

students enrolled at all levels regardless of state and non-state educational institutions

to ensure equity for learners; allowing non-public educational institutions to be self-reliant in education programs, taking self-responsibility for outputs according to announced commitment; to provide credit, tax and fee preferences for non -public educational institutions

References

http://moet.gov.vn/pages/home.aspx