Education in Viet-Nam. An historical and descriptive survey of its development with special reference to the post- 1954 period

Abstract

Education in Viêt-Nam has always teen highly regarded since time immemorial. That it was so, and not simply a way to a successful life at Court, was shown by the disinterested and true respect reserved for scholars who would lead a simple and scholastic life in the village, away from the glory and luxury which their education could have given them. Composing poetry, writing books, or simply teaching children, those scholars stood out as a group ("Sĩ") which comes first in the social hierarchy - "Sĩ, nông, công, thúóng". Translated: "Scholars, peasants, craftsmen, merchants". To this classification, there is the retort: "Normally, scholars come before peasants; but when there is no rice left, peasants come before scholars." Further, the popular belief in education is confirmed by folksongs and sayings about marriageable maidens who "preferred the feather pen and the ink-pot of poor students to the bountiful rice-fields of uneducated men", about wives who volunteered to toil so that their husbands could study, about parents who tried to give their children a "headful of letters" rather than money or land. Why this passion for education ? The main answer lies in the belief that education makes men. There is the old proverb:"Ngoc bât trát bât thành khí, nhân bât hoc bât tri 1ý" which means, roughly, that, like diamonds which are of no practical use when unworked, uneducated men do not know what is right. It should be remembered that Vietnamese tradition has always attached great importance to the moral aspect of education. Thus "no man can be called educated who has not also developed moral virtues", as the saying "có hoc phåi có hanh" proclaimed.