Vietnam targets higher pre-school education quality

Prof. Dr. Tran Cong Phong, Director of the Vietnam Institute of Education Sciences (VIES), told the workshop, themed “Initiatives to improve quality of early childhood education in Vietnam,” that the institute joined hands with New Zealand’s Waikato University and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to hold the event with the aim of discovering new ideas in the field.

Delegates at the workshop focused on policies supporting early childhood education and the renovation of contents and methods of child care, education and assessment.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Ba Minh, head of the Pre-school Education Department under the Ministry of Education and Training, said that universal pre-school education for five-year-old children has been prescribed in the 2009 Education Law, marking a major transformation of Vietnam’s early childhood education over the past 70 years. 

The Prime Minister also approved a project on universal pre-school education for five-year-old children during 2010-2015, he said, adding that the implementation of  the project over the past six years has impacted greatly on the development of the sector. 

As of April this year, the country fulfilled the goal of giving all five-year-old children access to pre-school education.

Minh, however, pointed out remarkable gap in pre-school education between regions in Vietnam, as reflected through the shortage of classrooms, material facilities and teachers in disadvantaged localities, including the northern, central and south central mountainous areas, and industrial parks.

The building of pre-school curriculums was also an item on the workshop’s agenda.