Under the newly issued Decree No 86, Vietnamese students can make up nearly 50 percent of the schools’ total students. 

Under the old regulation, the proportion must not be higher than 10 percent for primary education and 20 percent for secondary education.

International schools in Vietnam are foreign invested. They provide education services in accordance with foreign or bilingual curricula.

A high school teacher in Hanoi predicted that the newly released decree would lead to a boom of international schools in Vietnam.

“Vietnamese people, with improved income, tend to send their children to international schools which they believe can provide higher-quality education than state-owned schools,” he explained. 

Previously, only well-off families could afford their children’s studies at international schools, but now, middle-class people also think of sending children to the schools.

Marcel Van Miert, president of VAS (Vietnam-Australia International School), said on Tri Thuc Tre that the school has gained impressive annual growth rate of 20 percent in recent years.

“In the past, it was not easy for parents to enroll their children in international schools because of many reasons, including the regulation on the maximum number of Vietnamese the schools could receive. But with the new decree, the problems have been halved,” he commented. 

Miert commented that math and sciences have been the strength of Vietnam, but schools in the world attach importance to developing all students’ abilities and skills.

He went on to say that 50 percent of lessons in bilingual school curricula will be designed by the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam, which aims to help Vietnamese students preserve cultural identities.

Not only making heavy investments in material facilities, international schools spend big money on the teaching staff. All the teachers must have experience and foreign pedagogical degrees. He said prestigious international schools won’t accept teachers with less than five years of experience.

A report on education released by HSBC showed that in the last two years, more than 110,000 Vietnamese students have been studying in 47 countries. About 90 percent of the students are self-funded. They have to pay tuition of $30-40,000 a year. It is estimated that Vietnamese spend $3 billion a year to obtain international education.

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Mai Chi