Vietnam

E

Education

For centuries, education in Vietnam was based on the Confucian system practiced in China. Young males studied classical Confucian texts in preparation for taking civil service examinations. Those who passed the exams were eligible for positions in the bureaucracy. The French introduced Western schooling, although few students received training beyond the elementary level, and literacy rates were low.

Major advances in education occurred after the division of Vietnam in 1954. The South adopted an education system based on the United States model, which emphasizes the development of an individual’s talents and skills. The North introduced mass education and trained people for participation in a Communist society based on the political theories of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. After reunification in 1975 the Communist system used in the North was extended throughout the country, although technology training is now as important as teaching Communist ideology.

About 94 percent of the population aged 15 and over is literate. Education is compulsory for children ages 6 to 14. Nearly all children receive primary schooling. Fewer young Vietnamese receive a secondary education, however, partly because there is a shortage of adequate facilities, particularly in the mountainous areas. In addition, some families cannot afford to send their children to school, as even public schools impose student fees to help meet operating costs.

In 1993 the government reorganized higher education to improve the system’s overall ability to educate students in the principles of a market economy and train them to meet the changing needs of the labor market. In 2002–2003 just 10 percent of the people of relevant age were expected to attend schools of higher education. Major universities are located in Hanoi, Hue, Thai Nguyen, Da Nang, and Ho Chi Minh City, and the provincial capitals have smaller institutes.

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F

Social Structure

During the period of Chinese rule and for centuries after, Vietnamese social structure was patterned after the system prevalent in China. The vast majority of people were farmers. The governing class comprised about 5 percent of the population and was selected from candidates who had passed the Confucian civil service examinations or from influential landholding families. There were also a small number of artisans and merchants.

After the partition of Vietnam in 1954, the Communist government of North Vietnam completely changed the social structure. Private property was eliminated, and peasants and workers were given a new, if nominal, dominance in the social order. At the top of the order, functioning as the new ruling class, were officials of the Communist Party. In the South, on the other hand, the social structure remained virtually unchanged after the partition. After the Communists won the civil war in 1975, however, they imposed the same social structure on the South as they had on the North in 1954. Since the mid-1980s a more complicated social system has developed as a result of market economic reforms. Although most Vietnamese remain farmers, the number of industrial workers is increasing. Furthermore, an urban middle class is emerging, which includes many private entrepreneurs.

G

Way of Life

Before the late 1800s, nearly all the people of Vietnam lived in villages, and the cultivation of wet rice was the principal economic activity. The basic component of rural society was the nuclear family, composed of parents and unwed children. As in China, however, extended family relationships were also important. In many cases, extended families lived together. Parents arranged the marriages of their children, and filial piety (obedience to one’s parents) was expected. Wives, too, were expected to obey their husbands. Families venerated their ancestors with special religious rituals. The houses of the wealthy were constructed of brick, with tile roofs. Those of the poor were of bamboo and thatch. Rice was the staple food for the vast majority, garnished with vegetables and, for those who could afford it, meat and fish.

The French introduced Western values of individual freedom and sexual equality, which undermined the traditional Vietnamese social system. In urban areas, Western patterns of social behavior became increasingly common, especially among educated and wealthy Vietnamese. Elite Vietnamese attended French schools, read French books, replaced traditional attire with Western-style clothing, and drank French wines instead of the traditional wine distilled from rice. Adolescents began to resist the tradition of arranged marriages, and women chafed under social mores that demanded obedience to their fathers and husbands. In the countryside, however, traditional Vietnamese family values remained strong.

The trend toward adopting Western values continued in South Vietnam after the division of the country in 1954. Many young people embraced sexual freedom and the movies, clothing styles, and rock music from Western cultures became popular. But in the North, social ethics were defined by Communist principles adapted from China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The Communist government officially recognized equality of the sexes, and women began to obtain employment in professions previously dominated by men. At the same time, the government began enforcing a more puritanical lifestyle as a means to counter the so-called decadent practices of Western society. Traditional values continued to hold sway in rural areas, where the concept of male superiority remained common.

In 1986 the Vietnamese government adopted an economic reform program that borrowed freely from free-market principles and encouraged foreign investment and tourism. As a result, the Vietnamese people have become increasingly acquainted with and influenced by the lifestyles in developed countries of East Asia and the West. The Communist regime finds this trend worrisome, believing it could lead to an increase in individualism, materialism, drug use, and pornography. While the administration stresses the importance of economic development, it remains committed to wiping out what it considers the “poisonous weeds” of capitalism in Vietnamese society.

H

Social Issues

During the Vietnam War, the Communist government of North Vietnam was successful in limiting the country’s social problems to those directly connected with the war effort. Although malnutrition and poverty were common, corruption was rare and the incidence of drugs, prostitution, and crime was limited.

Following the war, Vietnam developed high rates of birth defects, probably due to the aerial spraying of Agent Orange and other chemical herbicides during the war. The U.S. military sprayed these defoliants on forests and crops to help expose the hiding places of Communist forces. As a consequence, innumerable Vietnamese were exposed to extremely toxic byproducts known as dioxins, which have been associated with severe birth defects and certain rare cancers in humans. Toxins that leaked into croplands and rivers around the sprayed areas also had long-term effects on the food supply of the country as a whole. Tests conducted after the war showed that considerable levels of dioxins were present in fish, a staple of the Vietnamese diet, and in milk from nursing mothers.

Land mines from the war also posed a significant problem. Concealed by both U.S. and Communist forces, land mines continued to kill and cripple people after the war. From the end of the war in 1975 to 2005, more than 58,000 Vietnamese were killed by land mines—more than all the U.S. servicemen who died during the war. See also Mine (Warfare).

Social problems have increased since the economic reforms of 1986. Corruption has escalated as increasing amounts of money circulate through society. Unemployment is also on the rise, especially among young people. Drug addiction and alcoholism are becoming serious problems; prostitution is rampant, especially in urban areas; and incidents of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) have increased in Vietnam. Many of these social ills may be inevitable consequences of the modernization process. However, they represent a serious challenge to a government determined to bring about economic development without the accompanying problems of social and political instability.

I

Social Services

Before the Communist era, the government relied on the family network to care for the sick and elderly and to provide other social benefits to family members. Under Communism, the state assumed responsibility for some of these benefits through collective farms and state-run industries that provided for the care and welfare of their employees. After the economic reforms of 1986, which essentially dismantled collective farms, farmers were expected to provide their own savings to cover the expenses of illness or retirement. People in the emerging private sector had to do the same.

Although the government has reduced benefits in certain areas, it still lacks the resources to deal with many of the other social needs of the population. As much as one-third of the workforce in rural areas is underemployed, and an estimated one-half of the rural population lives in poverty. At the same time, the availability of health care is declining.

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