Higher education access and inclusion: lessons from Vietnam

The higher education system in Vietnam has expanded rapidly during the past two decades, creating opportunities for personal advancement by hundreds of thousands of young Vietnamese. On the limited evidence available, however, it appears that these opportunities have not been distributed equitably. Young people from better-off homes from urban areas and from the ethnic majority group seem more likely to have benefitted. Girls also appear to have benefitted, a trend that is a reverse of the past. In this paper, we report on the state of access to higher education in Vietnam and we report on areas of policy that relate to achieving a more socially inclusive higher education system