According to the book edited in 2013 by Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training with the title “Education in Vietnam in the early years of the 21st century,” Vietnam education system is divided into two types of education, regular and continuous, including four levels of education and training: pre-school, general, professional, and higher education as shown below:
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Figure 1: Structure of the national educational system of Vietnam
Source: The Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam, 2013
18 2.3.1 Pre-school Education
Pre-school education contains nurseries and kindergartens. This kind serves for children from 3 months to 6 years old. The objective of pre-school education is to develop the initial qualities of children’s personality such as the physical, emotional and intellectual. There are three types of institutions in this education: nursery schools/groups (which provide the childcare for children from 3 months to 3 years old), kindergarten schools/ classes (for children from 3 to 6 years old), and the combination for both nursery and kindergarten (for children from 3 months to 6 years old). “The objective of Pre-school Education is to help children develop physically emotionally, and intellectually, forming the initial quality of their personality, thus preparing them for grade 1 at primary school” (Vietnam’s MOET, 2013, p. 28).
2.3.2 General Education
General education includes primary, lower and higher education. It takes five years at the grade from 1 to 5 and the age for enrolling is 6 years old in primary education. Lower education takes fours year from grade 6 to 9. The age for entering this kind of education is 11 years old.
Higher education lasts shorter with only three years from grade 10 to 12 and age entering is 15 years old. “The objectives of the general education are to assist students with moral, intellectual and physical development; to develop basic skills, personal capacity, dynamism and creativity, to form responsible Vietnamese citizen, to prepare students for further study or to join the labor market, and take part in building and defending the country” (Vietnam’s MOET, 2013, p. 36).
2.3.3 Professional Education
Professional education consists of two types, the secondary professional and vocational.
It takes 1 to 2 years for students who have secondary certificates (graduating level at high schools). And it takes 3 to 4 years to whom with lower secondary certificates (graduating level at secondary schools). Vocational education takes under 1 year for preliminary vocational
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education, and 1 to 3 years for secondary or college. “The objectives of professional education are to train laborers who obtain knowledge and various levels of professional skills, with moral and work ethics, discipline awareness, industry-related practices and physical health, thus providing them with employability, self employability or the ability to further study to improve professional workmanship and qualifications, meeting the needs of socio-economic development, national defense and security” (Vietnam’s MOET, 2013, p. 60).
2.3.4 Higher Education
There are four levels at higher education. The first one is college education. This takes 2 to 3 years for students who hold secondary education certificates, and 1 to 2 years to whom with secondary vocational certificates. The second one is university education. Students need to spend 4 to 6 years for this with their secondary education certificates, 2.5 to 4 years with their secondary vocational education certificates, and 1.5 to 2 years for their college diplomas. The third one is master’s level education. The students who have bachelor degrees can attend this level with the period of time from 1.5 to 2 years. And the last one is doctoral level education.
This kind of education takes 4 years for students with their bachelor degrees and about 2 to 3 years for those with master’s degrees. Higher educational aims “ to develop high quality human resources, to raise people’s knowledge levels to foster the talented, and to create new knowledge and products, which is, in turns, contribute to national socio-economic development and country’s international integration” (Vietnam’s MOET, 2013, p. 74).
Besides regular formal full time/training education system, there is a continuing education system that provides opportunities for people while working. The type of education institutions includes both public and private schools. Public schools are established and supported by the government. Private schools are managed by individual
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Chapter 3 Methodology
For the purposes of seeking in detail the reasons that cause the survey results introduced in the previous parts, the qualitative research is a proper choice to proceed with the study.
Qualitative research indicates “any kind of research that produces findings not arrived at by means of statistical procedures or other means of qualification” (Strauss and Corbin, 1998, pp.
10-11). It is also considered as “a research technique, method or strategy that seeks to observe, describe, and interpret activities, events or individual in their natural settings” (Mohammad, 2015, p. 3). It specially emphasizes in explaining the meanings that participants adhere in social contexts, and “acknowledge the complexity and dynamism of the social world” (Mohammad, 2015, p. 3). According to Hoepfl (1997) and Barbie (1986), the qualitative research has some charateristics clarified, including: natural contexts such as observations, descriptions and intepretations which are fundamental and dominant sources of data; interpretive charater implies the meanings events for those have experience in them; searching for the unique, human intrument, descriptive research, emergent character, trust and entry, and duration. These charateristics will be applied and selected properly during the process of conducting the research.