A study of school exclusion in Vietnam 

All the names and places in this article have been changed to guarantee the anonymity of all witnesses.  

Giang is 17.  When she talks about her particular journey, she smiles timidly, yet with a sense of pride.  Her story begins in a little village near Phan Thiết, where she was born to a very poor family in the south east of Vietnam.  When she was a young child, she went to school for a year or two before the family moved to Ho Chi Minh City, hoping for a better life. But priorities had changed. “My mother took me to the market with her to sell fish”, she remembers. 

Her father, who is a builder, could only find work on a day-to-day basis.  School was out of the question.  It was too complicated in many ways, and the motivation was not there.  Giang grew up without any school qualifications or educational benchmarks, just like thousands of children in Vietnam. Despite the fact that theoretically schooling is free and mandatory until age 15, a census taken by UNICEF in 2021 counted 96,000 children not in primary school, 307,000 not in lower secondary school, and 845,600 not attending upper secondary school.  And these numbers do not take into account children who abandon school, or those with prolonged absences. 

“Free” schools 

“State schools are meant to be free in Vietnam, but every month there are bills for additional charges” explains Nhi, head of an educational association in Ho Chi Minh City, as she puts various bills from different schools on the table.  These include mandatory additional fees, such as uniforms, school supplies, and the like. The poorest families struggle to meet these expenses which are set by each particular school. “Sometimes, the bill iseven higher, as certain schools charge for electricity, drinking water, snacks during parent/teacher meetings, hiring an English teacher from abroad, or for “life skills” classes. “‘And parents have to pay a substantial amount for lunch if their child cannot return home for lunch” continues Nhi. 

In fact, there is a large disparity between the fees charged by state schools in town, as opposed to those in the countryside.  Families who move from the countryside to the city (13.6 % of Vietnamese families changed addresses between 2010 and 2015, with 36% of migrations being from rural areas to the city,) are faced with an additional set of difficulties.  Children are not given priority in the new accommodation their families have found, so they often have to travel long distances to school, and have lunch there, which acts as a major challenge to quite a few families. 

Every term, school costs increase on average between 1 and 3 million VND (between 37 and 111 €), depending on whether schools are in an urban environment or in a rural area. On top of that, between 200 000 and600 000 VND (between 7 and 22 €) are added every month to cover ongoing expenses.  For children who live far from school, the price of lunch is an extra cost of close to 800 000 VND (around 30 €) a month.  Lower and upper secondary schools are the most expensive, costing 3 million VND (around 111 €) a month. These costs are high and they are mandatory; no exceptions are ever made. Children from families who are unable to pay all these expenses are excluded from an education, as in the case of Thanh, who is 8, and lives in a rural area in southern Vietnam. “The teachers literally shut the classroom door on the young girl”, says Nhi sadly, because her parents had been unable to pay the previous term’s fees, and were informed that Thanh was no longer welcome at the school. 

“The problem is that the majority of teachers are underpaid”, explains Nhi. The average salary of a teacher is 2 million VND in the countryside, about 74 €, and 6 million VND in the city, about 222 €. “They can make more by teaching after–school classes, but teachers normally expect their students to work on their most important lessons in the evening”. 

Obviously, after-school classes are not free, and they are expensive for struggling families (50,000 VND is the average price for a class, the equivalent of 2 €). “These classes are discriminatory and the government plans to ban them, starting September 2025”. The government’s decision is not reassuring, however, for poor families.  In fact, they are afraid that if teachers are not paid more, the system will continue, but in another form, possibly becoming even more expensive, perhaps in new locations, or online. All this makes the promise of an education an inaccessible dream for so many. 

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Alternative schools 

In response to these challenges, citizens themselves have come together to give families an alternative to state schools, and to offer them the administrative help they need to reintegrate their children into the state system. The TNS school is an example of such a school.  It accepts children denied entry to the state system.  It is in an outlying neighbourhood of Ho Chi Minh City, far from the glass skyscrapers and the crowded town centre. Many Cambodian and Chinese refugee families live here.  Sister Teresa is the director. 

She is a dynamic and seemingly indefatigable woman who crisscrosses the school corridors, going from a meeting with a teacher straight to another with a parent or a donor.  She knows every student, and each student’s family situation and difficulties. “This year, we have been able to accommodate 220 children, all with one thing in common: their administrative status or their financial situation prohibits them from benefittingfrom the classic educational system in place” the nun explains. “In our neighbourhood, state school fees can be as high as 4 000 000 VND (134 €) per term. These costs cannot be met by numerous families.” Approximately half of the children at the school are on the edge of poverty. 

The TNS school could accept many more children. Demand is high.  But Sister Teresa has her rules. “Before I accept a student, I visit the family several times. If the parents are in a stable situation and have enough money, I suggest they try the state schools,” she explains.  Why does Sister Teresa have this rule? Because she knows that the path ahead is full of obstacles. 

“After they finish their studies here, the children have to pass a competitive exam in order to begin Year 7. If they are not ready, we keep them another year or two” explains Sister Teresa. The school is much more than a sanctuary; it is a tenuous yet determined attempt to give the children a real chance in the world. When everything around them seems to want to exclude them, their goal is to connect them to it.  All 10 teachers who work at the TNS school offer children without ID papers, without financial means, and absent from government statistics, the precious opportunity of the right to an education. 

Return to The Love School 

Back at The Love School, Giang helps her teachers wash the lunch dishes, while Linh focusses on leafing through an English book full of big colourful pictures. Minh, calm as always, has bad news. “Linh’s mother’s sister’s children are absent today. I just found out that they have left school to sell lottery tickets in the streets.  Their older siblings persuaded them to join them”, she says, as she tries to call the family. 

The cruel reality is that without a school setting, or encouragement from their parents, children are lost. They make decisions that make them vulnerable to risky and dangerous situations. “Our greatest wish is that all the children who have had a difficult start in life can access a state school at some point, find the path to a classic education, and be able to dream of a future,” sighs Minh.  So many children, like Giang and Linh, have been left behind. May they all dare to believe in a future that will live up to their dreams.