INTRODUCTION
Research background
In Vietnam, education is recognized as a national priority as, since 2018, the government has spent 20% of its budget on education 1 Socialization education has been paid special attention due to an important role in the development of education, it is a decisive factor for socio-economic development
In Vietnam, educational socialization was officially introduced since Resolution No
90/ND - CP (August 21, 1997) In the resolution, directions and guidelines for the socialization of educational, health and cultural activities have been raised In particularly, the expansion of investment sources, utilizing the potentials of human, material and financial resources in the society, has been emphasized Also, the government promotes and uses effectively private resources, creating conditions for educational development and higher quality It can be seen that education socialization refers to the process of transferring educational activities carried out by the public to private In other words, socialization of education involves the process of privatization, transfer of public educational institutions to the private, individuals implemented under the management of the state According to Article
16 of the Education Law 2019: All organizations, families, and citizens are responsible for caring for education, the government plays the leading role, diversifying types of schools and forms of education Socializing education needs to be understood with two basic contents: firstly, mobilizing social resources to perform educational tasks; secondly, transferring the implementation of the educational tasks directly performed by the State to non-state organizations and individuals complying with state regulations, standards and requirements In the context of financial shortage from the state budget, the policy of educational socialization needs to be strengthened, so people can participate in the educational sector
In the context of Vietnam's implementation of socialization policies, the number of private schools has increased
Table 1.1: The number of public and private school, student and student/teacher ratio
Source: Combined by author based on data of MOET 2
According to Resolution No 35/ND-CP (June 4, 2019) on “strengthened mobilization of resource in the community for development of education and training in the 2019 – 2025 period”, which is regarding about strengthening the mobilization of social resources for investment in education and training development in the period of 2019 - 2025, there are all forms of private education in all local with 2,955 establishments (accounting for 6.68% of the 44,228 educational institutions), 1.35 million students (accounting for 6% of 22.5 million students) For higher education, there are currently 65 private higher education institutions with total of 244 thousand students, accounting for 13.8% of the total number of students nationwide, and there are 5 foreign higher education institutions operating in Vietnam, training over 5,000 students annual For vocational education, by the end of 2018, there are all 1,948 vocational training institutions (including 397 colleges,
519 secondary schools, 1032 vocational education centers), including 677 private vocational training institutions and foreign-invested vocational training institutions (accounting for 34.7%)
2 Ministry of Education and Training
Mobilizing social resources for education and training is not a substitution but an important supplement to the state budget, contributing to increasing the total investment resources for education and training, improve the efficiency of state budget use at public facilities
Table 1.2: Goal of promoting non-public sector in education
Sources: Combined by author based on Resolution No.35/ND-CP (4/6/2019)
As can be seen from table 1.2, the goal of promoting the mobilization of social resources set up by Vietnamese government is to reach 8.75% of nonpublic educational institutions of the total and 8.9% of students by 2020 and 13.5% and 16% respectively by 2025 Especially, for all level of education, by 2020, the base rate and the number of students attending private schools reached at 2.3% and 2.6% respectively; by 2025, the base rate and the number of students attending private institution is 2.7% and 3% 3
Public schools have been supported by the government while private schools run at their own expense, the difference between public and private schools is perceived as quality, facilities, and curriculum, …According to Coleman (1987), private schools produce better cognitive outcomes, provide a safer, more disciplined and structured learning environment So, private schools‟ tuition will be higher than in public schools Many studies have investigated the correlation between education and social mobility, they believe that the more education investment for children, the better their children's future is, that shows the choice of schools plays an important role In Viet Nam, for all level of education, there are two options between public
3 Resolution No.35/ND-CP (4/6/2019) on strengthened mobilization of resource in the community for development of education and training in the 2019 – 2025 period and private schools According to the theory of rational choice, parents will be rational actor who decides the value preference for their children However, school choice depends on many factors such as family background, parent educational status…Therefore, the study focuses on the factors that influence parents' choice between public and private schools.
Research purpose
The purpose of study to find out the determinants of the school choice of parents between public and private schools (family income, parent educational status, assessment of information, …) under the context of Viet Nam recently From the data estimation, further discussion and recommendation for educational reform is implemented
Research question
The research is conducted based on the main question:
What are the determinants of school choice between public and private schools in
Hypothesis
The determinants of school choice between public and private schools are: parents‟s educational background, school characteristics (distance, quality,…) Among these factors, parents‟s educational background will be the main factor influencing on parents choice of public and private schools
Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Literature review Chapter 3: Methodology Chapter 4: Findings from survey Chapter 5: Conclusion and implication
LITERATURE REVIEW
Definition of terms
Privatization is a process that can be defined as “the transfer of activities, assets and responsibilities from government/public institutions and organizations to private individuals and agencies” (Shanthi, 2008) Education privatization occurs in one of the following forms: private provision of education (by private entities, generally receiving government subsidies), private funding and private regulation, decision- making and accountability (education services being monitored by those who receive the services directly - students and their families)
Socialization: According to the Mouveau Petit Larousse dictionary (1969), socialization is process of turning productive materials and exchanging them into public goods Although there are various different definitions, however, in Vietnam, the term of "socialization" began from the Resolution of the 4th Central Conference (Session VII): Socialization policy issues are solved in the spirit of socialization
Socialization is the process of transferring the contents and tasks of social policies that the State does not necessarily have to integrate, and shift them to private and private organizations on the basis of regulations and standards required by government In many cases, Gainsborough (2010) defined that “socialization does imply the involvement of private actors, similar to the term „equitization‟ c phần hóa) that refers to the gradual privatization of state-owned enterprises”
Socialization Educational Policy: Socializing education is an educational policy that has been implemented in many countries in the world Depending on the country and the stage, this term is understood in many different ways such as decentralization, long life education, learning society, and community education
The term of socialization education indicate education for everyone and everyone doing education
Public school: “This is a school managed directly or indirectly by a public education authority, government agency, or governing board appointed by government or elected by public franchise.” (OECD, 2009) According to Education
Law 2019, public schools are run and gruaranted operational conditions by the state or government
Private school: “This is a school managed directly or indirectly by a non- government organisation; e.g a church, trade union, business, or other private institution.” (OECD, 2009) Private schools are run gruaranted operational conditions by domestic investors or foreign investors (Education Law 2019).
Literature review on previous research
Table 2 shows the literature review on previous research, and the contributions and limitations for each of research paper are pointed out
Table 2 Literature on previous research
Educated parents and distance of public school tends parents send their children to private schools
✓Mention only the physical characteristi c of school
Family size, parent education, teacher qualification, school performance are the factors affect parents' schooling choice
From the finding, private schools should be encouraged
Y=β_0+β_1 I+β_2 Ed+β_3 Fs+β_4 DPbS+β_5 SP+β_6 WQS+β_7 MOI+β_8 LTI+U_i
✓The combine of parent education is hard to see the how educated parent influences on school choice
School with higher- educated parents and higher-quality schools are preferred over others
Conditional logit model, Rank-ordered logit model
✓Focus on the school characteristi c
Parental education is an important determinants of who goes to school at all
Voucher (or scholarship) should be implemented to promote school choice
✓Analyzing for all level of education, not focus on specific level
Discuss about how and why parent exercise school choice From that, the increasing attention to vouchers, tuition tax credits and other policies diminish financial barriers to private school choice Qualitative
The general model of school choice is presented, two indicator of socioeconomic status and household income
Research is conducted for many years, the social has changed has substantial direct and indirect effect on school choice
Parents consider a variety of factors that are specific to their circumstances when participating in private school choice, and they make trade-offs among their preferences based on their experiences and needs
Focusing on literature review on public school choice under parent's perspective
Quality of education is not only factor but parent social network, school visit and talks with teachers are majority factors
There is a narrow slice of the population that engage in elementary school choice
Overview of public and private school and implication of policy on funding schools
Overview of private school in OECD countries
Working out with the determinants of school choice in parents perpective, Lynn.B(2004) investigated that social networks play an important role in showing the decission making of parent, from the information that parents access their network the accuracy choice would be decided On this point, Ellen B Goldring &
Kristie J.R Phillips (2008) investigated that there are two type of social networks which are interpersonal network and formal network Both of them inform the school choice of parents
Beside of that, demographic differences was discovered as another factor In 2011, Khan Rana Ejaz Ali and Raza Maryam 4 published a paper in which they described that the the child‟s school choice be influence on characteristics of the parents They also found that parents with educational background are likely choose private schools for their children It explains the educated parents choose private schooling has positive rate It is concluded that parents with high education give more expense to the facilities of the private sector schooling Further more, educated parents are likely to have higher income so that it could be understandable that they have more choice on private school In addition, some of documents indicated that parents who get higher educational have tendency of considering the importance of education, and they are more likely to find out information on the varieties of educational choices
Paul.G, Harry.A.P (1999) published on their paper that as incomes of Vietnamese the more households have countinuing increase, the more parents are willing to spend on education
From the table 2, it can be understood that there are huge number of research on school choice both empirical and theoritical research The research gap is studied on the situation in Viet Nam the determinants of school choice between public and private schools in Ha Noi Authour will conduct emperical research
The model of school choice
The model of parental choice is depicted as Figure 2 The model will be utilized to design the research and analysis
There are three factors as independent variables: household characteristics, parent attitudes about schools, previous schooling decisions These factors are expected to influence on the choice of a school Household characteristics affect to other factors (parents‟ attitudes about schools and previous schooling decisions)
Figure 2: Component of model of School Choice
Source: Parent and School Choice: Household Survey 5
In the model there are three factors of parents school-choice However, one more factor “children‟s will and characteristic” is added more on the model, as finding be pointed out that “children are choosing schools rather than their parents” (Mainda,
2001) This is factor designed in questionnaires by question that wherether or not parents consult with children before they send their child to high school that they choose
5 Mary.F Williams, Parents and school choice: Household Survey (1983)
METHODOLOGY
Methodology
There are number of factors influence on the parents‟ choice in selection of schools
In modelling the school choice, we assume that there are two choice for high- school: private schools and public schools The dependent variable in this research is school choice between public and private schools, which is defined as:
If p is the probability that the parents choose public school then 1-p will be the probability of choosing private school
The standard of model is:
Y: Choice between public school or private school : Vector of coefficients
As in this study we have:
Y= CHOICE = f(CGen, MEdu, Fedu, HhPCY, HhSiz, SchRep, TchQua, SchFac, LagPro, Dist, Fee, SchSer, EntRa, AcRate, ChilCa)
We have the empirical form of the model as below:
Table 3.1 List of variables used in model
1 if child goes to public school, 0 if private school
Dummy Variables 1: Public school 0: Private school
1 if child is male, 0: other
Father's education in completed years of education
Dummy Variables 1: Primary school 2: Secondary school 3: High school 4: Undergraduate level 5: Graduated level
Mother's education in completed years of education
Dummy Variables 1: Primary school 2: Secondary school 3: High school 4: Undergraduate level 5: Graduated level
Dummy Variables 1: Under 20 million VND 2: From 20 million VND to
40 million VND 3: From 40 million VND to
60 million VND 4: From 60 million VND to
80 million VND 5: Upper 80 million VND
Dummy variables 4: Extremely Important 3: Very important 2: Moderately important 1: Slightly important 0: No more at all important
Dummy variables 4: Extremely Important 3: Very important 2: Moderately important 1: Slightly important 0: No more at all important
Dummy variables 4: Extremely Important 3: Very important 2: Moderately important 1: Slightly important 0: No more at all important
Dummy variables 4: Extremely Important 3: Very important 2: Moderately important 1: Slightly important 0: No more at all important
Dist Distance of school from the house
Dummy variables 4: Extremely Important 3: Very important 2: Moderately important 1: Slightly important 0: No more at all important
Dummy variables 4: Extremely Important 3: Very important 2: Moderately important 1: Slightly important 0: No more at all important
Dummy variables 4: Extremely Important 3: Very important 2: Moderately important 1: Slightly important 0: No more at all important
Dummy variables 4: Extremely Important 3: Very important 2: Moderately important 1: Slightly important
0: No more at all important
Dummy variables 4: Extremely Important 3: Very important 2: Moderately important 1: Slightly important 0: No more at all important
Dummy variables 4: Extremely Important 3: Very important 2: Moderately important 1: Slightly important 0: No more at all important
The qualitative method is designed with in-depth interview to clarify parent‟s decision of school choice for their children The questionnaires are created based on the component of school choice model which is introduced in literature review, and Likert scale will be used to measure for each factor The survey was planned to conduct in Ha Noi with the aim of interviewing 9 parents who have children are student in public schools or private schools.
Survey site
Hanoi is the capital of Viet Nam with the area of over 3000 square kilometre, and the estimated population of over 8 million, it is the second largest city in Vietnam
Located in the northwest of the red river delta, Ha noi is the commercial, cultural, and educational centre of Northern Vietnam The nominal GDP of Ha Noi is estimated about US$32.8, it is considered the second most productive economic center of Vietnam Beside of that, Ha Noi is the largest center of education in Viet
Nam, and most of university in Viet Nam are located in Ha Noi For the high school level, there are the majority of public high school in Ha Noi
Ha Noi is chosen as a case study for some reasons Firstly, Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam, which has 30 districts with both rural and urban areas, thus, it can be used to analyze regional and geographical differences in school choice Secondly, Hanoi has a high number of private schools (33%) out of all high schools, much more than other cities in Vietnam so it is suitable for analysis.
Survey process
As planned, the survey will be conducted at 10 public and private schools in Hanoi
However, due to the outbreak of Covid-19, an online survey was conducted instead
The method used in data collection is the snowball method The survey was conducted from April 17th to May 5th, and out of the 162 questionnaires collected,
8 questionnaires could not be utilized due to incorrect and illogical information
Thus, 154 valid answers can be used for analysis
For the in-depth interview, each interview was taken place in 20 minutes for further information which could explain detail the choice between public and private schools
Due to the effect of Covid-19, the author could not arrange direct meetings with informants, instead of that, the author connected to parents who are willing to join the in-depth interview by the phone call that supplied by them in the online questionnaires The interview be conducted with nine parents, three parents have children in private schools, and the rest are parents who have children in public schools
The table below is the classification of interviewees by the region and type of school
Table 3.2 Table of classification of parents in the in-depth interview
Urban area Rural area Total
FINDINGS & DISCUSSION
Summary of survey
4.1.1 The ratio of public and private schools in the survey
The number of students attending public schools in Hanoi is the majority (69%) over private school (31%), this can be seen through some reasons: the number of private schools in Hanoi (73 schools) is a half of the number of public schools (147 schools), and the number of students per class of private schools is less than public schools
Figure 4.1 The ratio of public & private school in the survey
4.1.2 Gender of parents and children in the survey
The chart below shows that 85% of the participants are mothers of high school students, while the remaining 15% are fathers This can be understood that in Vietnamese culture particularly, mothers are more concerned about their children‟s education than their fathers
Figure 4.2 The ratio of parents gender in the survey
The chart shows the ratio of students attending public and private schools by gender We can see that the percentage of female students attending public schools (56%) is larger than male students attending private schools (44%)
Figure 4.3 The ratio of children in public schools by gender
In contrast to this, in the case of private schools which have 82% of male students going to private schools while only 18% of female students going to private schools
Figure 4.4 The ratio of children in private schools by gender
From the ratio of children in public and private schools by gender, it seems that female students are likely to attend public schools rather than private schools
Nevertheless, male students are likely to attend private schools rather than public schools
4.1.3 The frequency & ratio of school characteristics choosen by parents in survey
The descriptive statistic table 4.1 shows that in general, there are three factors that parents concerned most in choosing schools for their children: school is suitable for children's ability, teacher qualification, and university acceptance rate
Table 4.1 The frequency & ratio of school characteristics chosen by parents in general
Important Very important Moderately important
No more at all important
Frequency Ratio Frequency Ratio Frequency Ratio Frequency Ratio Frequency Ratio
School is suitable for children ability
Distant of school from the house
In general, parents who have students attending private schools thought that “school is suitable for children ability” and “teacher qualification” is the main factor
In table 4.1, there are 74.48% of parents who regard “school is suitable for children ability” as the most important factor when they choose schools, following is
“teacher qualification” with 68,97%, and the third factor is “university acceptance rate” which 50.34% of parents concern extremely important
Table 4.2 The frequency & ratio of school characteristics chosen by parents in
No more at all important Frequency Ratio Frequency Ratio Frequency Ratio Frequency Ratio Frequency Ratio School reputation 19 42.22 24 53.33 2 4.44
School is suitable for children ability
Distant of school from the house
This trend is the same with public school and private school From table 4.2, it can be seen that 80% of parents in case of private schools concern “school is suitable for children ability” and “teacher qualification” as crucial factors
Additionally, “school facilities” is third factor which the ratio of parents who think this factor is extremely important is 64.44% Obviously, this could be understood that private schools invest on school facitilites to make learning ability environment and attract more student entering
Table 4.3 The frequency & ratio of school characteristics chosen by parents in
Important Very important Moderately important Slightly important No more at all important
Frequency Ratio Frequency Ratio Frequency Ratio Frequency Ratio Frequency Ratio
School is suitable for children ability
Distant of school from the house
In the case of public school, “school suitable for children ability” and “teacher qualification” are also two influential factors with the percentage of 72% and 64%
To compare with private school, while 33.33% of parents in private school think that entrance ratio is extremely important, the percentage of this factor in public school is 54%, which is the third factor following two factors above
In conclusion, “school suitable for children ability” and “teacher qualification” are most concerned in general, both parents in public and private school choose schools for their children consider these factor are most important For the third factor, parents in public school choose “entrance ratio” while parents in private school choose “school facilities”.
Findings from the survey
Firstly, the logistic regression model is run with all variables, and the result is depicted in the Model 1 in table 4.4 as below:
Table 4.4 The logistic regression result of the first model second model
Standard errors in parentheses Standard errors in parentheses *** p