Can Vietnam achieve one of its millennium development goals? An analysis of schooling dropouts of children

After ratifying the Millennium Declaration in 2000, Vietnam committed itself to achieving, among other goals, the universal completion of primary education by 2015 and the elimination of gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2005 and to all levels of education no later than 2015. This study attempts to identify the underlying determinants of schooling dropout in Vietnam and to project its trend in the future up to 2015.

The author conducts both qualitative and quantitative analyses using three Vietnam’s Living Standard Surveys conducted in 1992/93, 1997/98 and 2001/02 and the conventional framework of educational investment at the household level.

The analysis identifies two groups of major determinants of households’ schooling dropout which are child’s characteristics (such as age, working time, primary education, and number of siblings) and household economic situation (such as parental education, household’s per capita expenditure, and cost of schooling).

In general, the author finds that:

• schooling dropout probability has been very sensitive to changes in the household’s per capita expenditure and the direct costs of schooling
• gender disparities still remain but tend to decline over time
• the dropout situation is region specific
• other causes such as the low quality of education, parents' incorrect perception of and the community’s attitude to education values may also increase the possibility of children’s schooling dropout

The author concludes that if growth of the cost of schooling is lower than that of the household’s per capita expenditure, then the projections seem to provide a rather bright picture in terms of achieving the educational development goal.

The following policy implications can be withdrawn from the analyses:

• sustaining high economic growth is very important for reducing schooling dropout of children
• dealing with the problems of the cost of schooling is crucial in order to alleviate the excessive burden for low income households
• developing targeted programs which incorporate poverty reduction and education improvement is central to keep children in the schools
• Strengthening the role of the community can help in changing the families’ perception of education