Vietnam

Despite the requisite qualifications and training prescribed by the Ministry of Education, a large number of schools have at least part of its teaching staff without adequate training or qualifications. This is particularly so in the mountainous and remote areas, where city and townbred senior school graduates are reluctant to serve. The same is true for many primary schools where, as stated before, there is a serious shortage of teachers. The enrollment in the primary schools across the country has outpaced the numbers of qualified persons willing to enter the teaching profession at that level.

By the end of the last century, U.S.-Vietnam relations had come full-circle with the establishment of full diplomatic relations in 1995 between the two former foes, admission of Vietnam (with U.S. support) as a full member of the pro-West Association of Southeast Asian nations (ASEAN), the bilateral trade greement between Vietnam and the United States, and a four-day visit by President Clinton to Vietnam in November 2000. Academically significant was Clinton's choice of the University of Hanoi as the venue for his major address and his mention of the increasing academic ties between the United States and Vietnam, notably the Education Abroad Program of the University of California in Hanoi.