People and places
A new outlook for Vietnam Sam Fraser gives an insight into the impact of new regulations on the international school sector
Changes for Vietnam The cap on local student attendance has been the major barrier to foreign investment within Vietnam’s education sector, particularly in the second-tier provinces outside Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City which attract fewer expatriates. As at August 2018 there are 119 international schools in the country, and the market has altered very little since there were 100 international schools in 2013. At the same time, the demand from more affluent Vietnamese families for international education has increased. According to Vietnam’s Department of Foreign Training, under the Ministry of Education and Training, more than 110,000 Vietnamese students of all ages moved abroad to study in 2014. This number has grown year on year, and includes children as young as 12 and 13 being sent to independent boarding schools – primarily in the UK, US, Australia and Singapore – because of the limitations on education choice in their home country. However, Decree 86 – issued by the government of the Socialist Republic
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of Vietnam on 6 June 2018 – could redress some of this movement overseas and see more international school development funded by foreign investors. The new Decree, which officially came into effect on 1 August 2018, allows foreign-owned schools, including pre-schools and those for compulsory-age education, to enrol Vietnamese children up to a maximum of 49% of the total number of students in the school. This is a significant relaxation of the former limitations which restricted the numbers of local children to no more than 10% of the total enrolment at primary level and 20% at secondary. The new Decree is expected to open international classroom doors to many additional local children, some of whom have been on long waiting lists for several years. Where capacity allows, local student enrolment in the foreign-owned schools across Vietnam looks likely to increase as the new school year begins. This could ultimately result in a similar scenario to the 2012 changes in Malaysia which saw the lifting of restrictions on the number of local Malaysian nationals who could attend international schools. Today, international schools in Malaysia are legally entitled to enrol up to 100% Malaysian nationals if they choose, although most of the leading schools aim for a 50:50 ratio of local and expatriate children. As a result, according to ISC Research data, the number of K-12 international schools in Malaysia increased from 108 in 2012 to 239 in 2018, and student enrolment during that same Autumn |
Spring
For the past eighteen months, the international schools market in Vietnam has been in waiting. Anticipated amendments to government regulations which, until now, have limited numbers of local students allowed to enrol in foreign-owned international schools in the country, have been slow in coming. But in August 2018 new regulations came into place.
| 2018
