VietNamNet Bridge – After eight times of being amended and two announcement delays, the draft national strategy on education development for 2008-2020 has been set to be made public in mid-December.

Under the draft strategy, pre-school education will make basic renovations so that Vietnam will have 95% of students by 2015 and 98% of students by 2020 going through kindergartens before going to their 1^st class. The network of pre-school education establishments, especially in rural and remote areas, will be developed to ensure that there are 80% of students by 2010, 95% of students by 2015, and 100% of communes and wards to have kindergartens.

The child-care quality will see basic changes, so that 90% of children at the age of five can meet the standards for growing, and the number of malnourished children will be less than 10%.

As for general education, educators have decided that by 2010, Vietnam needs to have all of the provinces and cities meeting the standards for universal secondary education. By 2020, Vietnam hopes to see 80% of Vietnamese youths to have the academic standards equivalent to a high school education.

Regarding the education quality, Vietnam strives to have 60% of students who can meet the national requirements on reading comprehension by 2010, 75% by 2015, while the figure will increase further in due course. By 2020, Vietnam strives to have 70% of students able to learn English from a 3^rd class level.

Regarding the higher education, the ratio of students on 10,000 people will be raised to 200 by 2010, to 200 by 2015 and 450 by 2020. The training scale of non-state universities will be expanded, which will allow raising the percentage of students in non-state universities to 40% of total students by 2020.

Vietnam strives to have at least five universities to be listed among the 100 leading universities in the ASEAN region, and to have two universities to be listed among the world’s top 200 universities. Vietnamese students will have the capability of using English in learning, researching, and working after graduation.

By 2020, Vietnam needs to have at least 5% of the graduates having the knowledge equal to the knowledge of students graduating with honours from the leading universities in ASEAN countries. It is expected that 85% of graduating students are recognized by employers as meeting the requirements of the jobs.

Regarding the lecturers at universities, Vietnam plans to have 65% of lecturers having an MA degree by 2020 and 30% to have a PhD.

(Source: Dan tri)