Changes in vietnam education governance in the context of international integration

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 th 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 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 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 This Vietnamese term is used to designate the overall process of renovation in Vietnam, initiated from 1986 and developed continuously until now particular, is lagging far behind the pace of innovation in other sectors of socioeconomic development (Vietnam Communist Party [VNCP], 2009) 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 will identify the emergence of new realities in education under the impacts of international integration This entails in section the 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 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 nonprofit 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 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 and 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 to 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 their organization and operation, and are authorized to use competition mechanism to attract more students, but they 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 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 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 Some New Trends in Education Governance 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 3.1 New Public Management (NPM) 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 through different stages and packaged in different ways in different countries, with each country following its own reform trajectory within a broader framework (Christensen & Laegreid, 2010), NPM has been successfully applied in developed countries and some developing countries in the past two decades in order to cope with challenges and to take advantage of opportunities in international integration (Ehsan & Naz, 2003) In education, NPM has led to structural changes even at the school level, for example schools now exercise most powers, including planning and budgeting, resource allocation, hiring and firing, evaluation and monitoring; schools must play in the quasi-market to attract pupils in competition with other schools; accountability to parents and other community stakeholders are emphasized; statutory powers have been given to parents to be involved in the decision-making process, etc As for higher education institutions, Marginson and Van der Wende (2008, p 20) observed: “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) 10 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) 13 3.5 Educational measurement, comparison and ranking Thanks to international integration, education systems over the world are able ‘to see’ each other, thus promoting the sharing of knowledge, the exchange of research, as well as the need of positioning each education system in the global education system Recognizing that comparisons to similar countries provide a useful benchmark for policymaking, governments are more and more concerned with the use of international comparisons Hence arises a new culture of measurement in education: If previously educational measurement focused on the assessment of learning, it is now expanded to evaluate educational institutions, local educational communities, and education systems The effectiveness mindset, which was prevalent in international economic integration, found also its way in international integration of education, according to which the evaluation of education reposed chiefly on the construction of educational performance indicators Within this context, various systems of educational performance indicators have been developed nationally as well as internationally Nationally, the development of good education management information systems (EMIS) becomes an essential part of the effort to improve education governance EMIS provides reliable information to policy makers that allow them to make informed policy decisions Internationally, in view of comparing education statistics across the world, UNESCO Institute of Statistics provides a rich system of education indicators, covering main measures of education development, and publishes annually in the Global Education Digest for international comparison and analysis For middle- 14 income countries, UNESCO in collaboration with OECD has initiated the World Education Indicators (WEI) program, aiming to establish a comparative perspective on key policy issues to better monitor education systems among WEI members Concern in recent years is the global university rankings Despite much debate about the benefits and pitfalls of the rankings for each education system, it is interesting to observe that eventually international integration has been leading to a syndrome of ranking, where almost every country claimed its determination of either having world-class universities or improving the rank of its universities in the global rankings The causes of this syndrome might be different, however seen from the perspective that university rankings are broadly used for competition in the global higher education market, it could be said that the market mindset has found another particular way to penetrate into the arena of education policy development Impacts of International Integration to Vietnam Education Governance 4.1 New realities in Vietnam education With its open-door policy, since the 1990s Vietnam education has gradually shifted from a closed system to an open one, integrating international factors into the mission, organization and operation of education By early 2000, Vietnam education has already participated proactively to international integration, receiving crossborder education upon both mechanisms: for-profit and not-for-profit With the issuance of the Government Resolution N 05/2005/NQ-CP (The Government, 2005), both for-profit and not-for profit domestic private educational institutions were also recognized Thus, an immature education market has implicitly emerged whether decision-makers accepted it or not (Pham, 2006) 15 Entering WTO, with its commitments to education under GATS, Vietnam officially recognized the education market and opened it for the access of foreign providers This marked in policy a new period of Vietnam education, that of integration and development In this context of international integration, new realities which were gradually established over the world during these last two decades, make also their appearance in Vietnam First and foremost is the official emergence of the education market According to the British Council website (www.britishcouncil.org/eumd-informationabout), Vietnam is a competitive market of many educational corporations from the USA, UK, Australia, France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, Korea, China, India, Singapore, Malaysia These corporations, as Kaplan (USA), ANZ (Australia), Tyndale (Singapore), Navitas (multinational), are focusing chiefly on the consumption abroad mode of the market As for the commercial presence mode, other corporations, such as NIIT, Aptech, Kinderworld Singapore, APU, have successfully invested and strongly affirmed their presence in the development of educational institutions in Vietnam With the pressure of the market, Vietnam is interested in strengthening regional cooperation towards shaping education spaces/areas Vietnam joined the Brisbane Communiqué which key goals were related to the recognition and quality of education and training in the APEC region Vietnam also participated in the ASEM Education Ministerial Meetings which aim to establish a strategic partnership between the Asian and European countries for the 21st century Of course, with large areas such as APEC and ASEM, taking account of huge differences and high 16 diversity between countries in economic, political, cultural, and educational development, it is hard to say of building common education spaces/areas of the regions Even within ASEAN countries, although Vietnam and other countries, namely Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines, advocated the initiative of building an ASEAN higher education space, the implementation will be very difficult and full of challenges According to Supachai (2009), in the region, both policy and academic discourses on the issue of developing a higher education space or area are still inadequate The lack of understanding and awareness about the process of harmonization in higher education is still the main impediment for long-term strategic planning in both governmental and higher education sector Besides the above-mentioned new realities, it is to recognize that during this last decade the role of civil society in Vietnam has increased considerably Previously, when Vietnam civil society was still young, its role was limited chiefly in resource contribution to education development Nowadays, with the expansion of the middle class and the growth of civil organizations, such as Learning Promotion Association, Former Teachers Association, Non-Public Colleges and Universities Association, Elderly People Association, Farmer Association, etc., the role of civil society in education is growing stronger, ranging from resources contribution to constructive criticism in policy development 4.2 Implications for Vietnam education governance It is clear from the above presentation that, viewed within the context of international integration, new realities were emerging and transforming profoundly the landscape of education in Vietnam As a result, Vietnam education system is 17 growing in complexity with similar characteristics of complex education systems in the developed world (Fazekas & Burns, 2012): the increasing diversity of needs and expectations of stakeholders in education; the growing important role of new actors in the provision and management of education; the added impact of additional layers of governance at the international and transnational levels; high requirements on decentralization and flexibility in governance structures; and great impact of ICT to governance models Obviously, governance has never been easy, and the search for governance models that allow governments to effectively steer their complex education systems is actually on the agenda of OECD countries However, for the time being, in the context of international integration, some of the most important responses to this increasing complexity have been the changes in education governance as mentioned in section of this paper It is interesting to see that these trends have been also applied and adapted to Vietnam education governance with, of course, considerable variation due to specific national context First and most important, policy and the legal framework for Vietnam education governance have been developed gradually along the main strategies of NPM, which are decentralization, institutional autonomy, privatization, diversification, quality assurance, performance-based, and learner-oriented However, 18 as has been analyzed by Pham Do (2011), this was chiefly a kind of NPM which has been applied on an ad hoc basis, without sound research for adaptation, and therefore resulting in a patchy, misaligned, and vicious circle in governance innovation As for regulatory frameworks related to the education market, it is really a sensitive issue in Vietnam The market has already made its appearance in the education sector since early 2000, but before WTO, one usually preferred not to mention it After WTO, although Vietnam has committed to open its education market for foreign direct investment, the market presence in education has not yet been officially recognized by decision-makers This entailed debate in the education sector as well as in the society at large about the existence of the education market, its characteristics, its positive and negative effects, its mechanism, and its implications to governance and management With the contribution of some notable research (see for example Dang, 2007; Tran, Dang, Dang Ba, & Tran Thi, 2012; Vu, Nguyen, Dang Ba, & Pham Do, 2013), all this seem to have a positive effect in creating a gradual change in the thinking of decision-makers towards recognition of the education market By 2012, The Government (2012a) issued a decree regulating both cooperation with and investment of foreign countries in Vietnam education Almost at the same time, The Government Resolution No 40 (The Government, 2012b) has been passed in view of promoting innovation in the organization and operation of public service units, including educational institutions, encouraging and facilitating these units for market participation and for providing more and better services to the society Thus, five years after WTO, regulatory frameworks for quality assurance of cross-border education and for market mechanism in the education sector have been 19 established, marking a considerable change in education governance in view of adapting to new realities in education As regards the shaping of regional educational spaces, Vietnam and other ASEAN countries seem to be still at the stage of raising awareness In The Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (ASEAN, 2011), with the vision of building an ASEAN community by 2015, harmonization of higher education was not yet mentioned in the list of key actions as well as prioritized projects This is due chiefly to key challenges faced by the higher education sector, namely the lack of an agreed set of infrastructure, including academic cycles, curriculum development, credit transfer, and quality assurance procedures, to facilitate the harmonization On the democratization of education, Vietnam has developed since the 1990s policy and guidelines for LLL and building a learning society However, many obstacles persist and Vietnam LLL is still rather rhetoric than reality (Pham Do, 2009) The actual education system is still a rigid and bureaucratic one, aiming chiefly to the preparation for exam sitting, with persistent difficulties in connectivity and streaming Particularly, it is a system in which there are not yet a democratic culture and effective mechanisms that permit managers, teachers and learners to express frankly and openly their views in the process of policy development in education In educational measurement, there is not yet in Vietnam a well functioning EMIS that allows policy makers to successfully disseminate accurate information about the functioning of the education system, and thus to provide reliable answers about the pressing issues of education 20 Thus, on the one hand, Vietnam education has exposed similar new realities and pushed its governance to develop along the same common trends in order to adapt to the demands and pressures generated from the external environment On the other hand, while the general tendency in international integration is a simultaneous development of market approach and counterbalanced measures, the current tendency in Vietnam seems to favor market mechanisms in practical development as well as in regulatory framework It is noteworthy that while policy and regulatory framework might be seen as relatively established in the area of education market, they are still latent in other related areas There is not yet in Vietnam education a clearly formulated strategy on international integration although this has been stipulated as one of the key measures for fundamentally and comprehensively innovating higher education from 2006 to 2020 (The Government, 2005) While market mechanisms are on the way of institutionalization, civil society has not yet received any incentive policy for development and a law on free establishment of associations has to wait for an indeterminate period of time The notion of democratization of education has just been introduced; its content and mechanism have to wait for identification and clarification The accountability system at all levels of education administration does not work properly This misalignment of policy development, along with poor quality institutions and low capacity to enforce law implementation, resulted in a vicious circle in governance innovation Conclusion 21 It has been shown in this paper that, due to international integration, new realities are emerging on the scene of education and spreading all over the world These new realities are eventually associated with the participation and contribution of two new actors, the market and civil society As a result, education systems, in developed countries as well as in many developing countries, are growing in complexity, and educational institutions are shifting from one-dimensional relationship with the state to a three-dimensional relationship with the state, the market and civil society Consequently, there is a need to redefine the relations between the state, the market and civil society This means that the growing in complexity of education systems entailed the growing in complexity of education governance In view of coping with new realities, some innovative strategies have been initiated and then, thanks to the effects of international integration, became common trends to be applied and adapted in other countries This is the case with the proliferation of NPM, the development of regulatory frameworks for quality assurance in cross-border education, the shaping of common education spaces, the democratization of education, and the promotion of educational measurement It is important to note that all the above mentioned initiatives came from developed countries where there is already in place a strong knowledge base in governance, a massive research apparatus, and a long tradition and favorable environment for innovation and creativity Such strengths not exist yet in Vietnam as well as in many other developing countries Therefore innovations in Vietnam education governance are often imitated and/or borrowed from good practices in the 22 developed world through the spread of ideas in a globalized world However, due to the lack of necessary background research, the application and adaptation of new trends in governance are usually patchy and misaligned Thus, there is an urgent need for setting up new agendas to address the challenges of scientific research in Vietnam education governance It has been stipulated in the Education Law (National Assembly, 2005) that priority should be given to the development of research, application and dissemination of educational sciences, however due to the scarcity of resources and weaknesses of the research apparatus, it is actually very difficult to implement the legal stipulation that “guidelines and policies concerning education should be formulated based on the results of scientific 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one hand and the building of common education. .. entailed the growing in complexity of education governance In view of coping with new realities, some innovative strategies have been initiated and then, thanks to the effects of international integration,