The policy of teaching subjects in English risks simply legalizing an existing reality: children of the urban middle class learn bilingually.
A small decision, a major signal
When the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training announced a plan to pilot teaching certain subjects in English at schools meeting specified conditions, most domestic media described it as an integration step. That reading misses the most important point: this is the first time a major Vietnamese locality has officially tied a roadmap making English a second language in schools to a specific timeline — 10% of secondary schools adopting this model by 2030, according to the plan released by the HCMC Department of Education.
The figure of 10% sounds modest. But in an education system where English has existed only as a subject, not a medium of instruction, for three decades, shifting even one-tenth of schools to a bilingual model represents a structural change. And it is happening in the most densely populated, richest city with the highest rate of parents spending on private education in Vietnam — which makes this policy both more feasible than in any other locality and carries the risk of deepening the educational gap between urban and rural areas.
Context: three decades of English teaching, modest results
Vietnam has invested in English education since the mid-1990s. The National Foreign Languages Project 2008-2020 (commonly called Project 2020), with an initially announced budget of approximately 9,400 billion dong, aimed to ensure that by 2020, most secondary school graduates could use English independently. This target was not achieved — the Ministry of Education and Training acknowledged this in final assessment reports, and the project was later extended until 2025.
According to the EF English Proficiency Index 2024 released by EF Education First, Vietnam ranks 63rd out of 116 surveyed countries and territories, in the intermediate proficiency group. This position is lower than the Philippines (rank 22), Malaysia (rank 26), and Singapore (rank 3), neighboring Southeast Asian countries with histories of using English in public education.
The cause of the gap is not difficult to identify. While the Philippines and Singapore use English as a medium of instruction for multiple subjects (English-medium instruction), Vietnam teaches English about English — students learn grammar, vocabulary, and take multiple-choice tests, but do not use English to learn mathematics, science, or history. The result is a generation that can pass exams but cannot read an academic article.
The HCMC plan, at least on paper, is an effort to break this cycle.
Which schools will meet the conditions?
This is a question that the HCMC Department of Education's published materials avoid. The phrase schools meeting specified conditions can be interpreted in multiple ways: having enough teachers with international certificates (IELTS 6.5 or higher, or equivalent), sufficient facilities, or sufficient students with an English foundation.
The reality in HCMC suggests that schools meeting the conditions will almost certainly align with a familiar list: schools in District 1, District 3, District 7, Binh Thanh District, and Phu Nhuan District — areas with the highest average household incomes in the city. According to the 2022 General Statistics Office's living standards survey, HCMC has the highest per capita income in the country, but the gap between the old inner districts and outer districts like Cu Chi, Can Gio, and Hoc Mon remains very large.
A teacher at a public primary school in Cu Chi, teaching 40 students per class with a monthly salary of around 8 to 12 million dong, cannot be expected to teach science in English simply because a document from the city directs it. Teachers with international certificates are currently concentrated in bilingual private schools, prestigious public schools, and the international school system — where tuition ranges from 200 million to 800 million dong per year according to schools' public surveys.
In other words, the policy of teaching subjects in English risks simply legalizing an existing reality: children of the urban middle class learn bilingually, while children of the rest of the population continue to learn English as a grammar subject.
The teacher problem: the real bottleneck
According to figures released by the Ministry of Education and Training at the end of 2023, the country lacks approximately 118,000 teachers at all levels, with shortages in English teachers and teachers for integrated subjects being among the most critical hotspots. HCMC, despite financial advantages, still faces the situation of teachers leaving the public sector for private schools or language centers — where salaries are 2 to 3 times higher.
To teach mathematics in English, a teacher needs three simultaneous competencies: subject expertise in mathematics, academic English proficiency (CEFR C1 or above is the standard generally applied internationally), and the CLIL method (Content and Language Integrated Learning). The number of Vietnamese teachers with all three competencies is currently very small, and most have been attracted to elite private schools.
The HCMC plan does not announce a specific budget for teacher retraining, nor does it outline mechanisms to retain talent. This is the largest gap in the entire document.
Infrastructure targets: ambition or unrealistic?
Beyond English, the plan sets targets of 300 classrooms per 10,000 children aged 3 to 18 by 2030, and 80% of secondary schools meeting national standards. These are noteworthy figures because HCMC currently faces a classroom shortage, not an excess.
According to reports from the HCMC Department of Education at city People's Council sessions in 2023 and 2024, the city adds approximately 25,000 to 30,000 students annually, mainly due to immigration. Districts such as Binh Tan, District 12, Go Vap, Binh Chanh District, and Hoc Mon are continuously overcrowded — many primary schools have class sizes of 50 students, far exceeding the Ministry of Education's standard of 35 students per class.
The target of 90% of primary school students attending two sessions per day by 2030 places enormous infrastructure pressure. Two sessions daily requires double the classroom area compared to a single-session model, or requires reducing class sizes to allow rotation between shifts. Both options require building more schools — on a land base where the public land fund is already depleted.
Perspective of the Vietnamese-American community
For the Vietnamese-American community, particularly in Little Saigon (Orange County), San Jose, and Houston, HCMC's education policy is not distant news. It directly affects three groups:
First group: Families with children still studying in Vietnam — usually children of overseas Vietnamese who have returned to work, or children of cross-border marriages. If some HCMC public schools begin teaching subjects in English, it could reduce the pressure to send children to international schools with tuition of 20,000 to 35,000 USD per year. This is a significant change for the Vietnamese-American middle class returning home.
Second group: Vietnamese-American education investors. Over the past 10 years, some Vietnamese-origin entrepreneurs in California and Texas have invested in bilingual private schools, English centers, and dual-credit programs in Vietnam. If HCMC's public system moves quickly into bilingual education, the business model of mid-tier private schools will face pressure — public schools with much lower tuition will compete directly on product.
Third group: Vietnamese students studying abroad in the United States. According to the 2023 Open Doors report from the Institute of International Education (IIE), Vietnam ranks fifth in the number of international students in the US, with approximately 21,900 students. Most come from HCMC and Hanoi. If public education in HCMC truly improves academic English quality, American universities — particularly mid-tier schools competing for international admissions — might see a new generation of candidates with higher TOEFL/IELTS scores but different financial aid requirements. This affects recruitment strategies at schools in California, Texas, and Washington — where Vietnamese-American communities are large and have many connections.
Top 500 university partnerships: commitment or slogan?
The plan sets a target of 20% of partnership programs conducted with universities in the world's top 500. This figure is questionable for two reasons.
First, global university rankings (QS, Times Higher Education, Shanghai Ranking) use different methodologies. A university ranking in the top 500 by QS may not rank in the top 500 by Shanghai. The Department of Education's document does not clarify which ranking is referenced.
Second, truly top 500 universities (by any ranking) rarely open partnership programs with Vietnamese public universities. Most existing partnerships are with mid-tier universities in Britain, Australia, or schools in the 500-1,000 ranking range. To achieve the target of 20% partnerships with top 500 universities, HCMC's university system would need a leap in prestige that these schools have not yet shown a clear roadmap for.
Regional comparison: lessons from Malaysia and the Philippines
Malaysia is a case worth studying. In 2003, the Malaysian government implemented PPSMI policy — teaching mathematics and science in English from primary school. By 2012, the policy was abolished following waves of protest from rural teachers and parents in states where Malay language was dominant. Reason: rural students fell significantly behind because teachers lacked language proficiency.
The Philippines, conversely, has maintained English as a medium of instruction since American colonial times. Result: above-average English proficiency, but accompanied by decline in native language ability among some students — an issue the Philippines is now trying to correct through multilingual education policy based on mother tongue (MTB-MLE) since 2012.
If HCMC conducts its pilot selectively and without haste to expand, it can avoid Malaysia's mistake. But if political performance pressure forces the city to report achieving 10% by the 2030 deadline despite teacher quality being unready, Malaysia's scenario could replay — only in one city rather than the entire country.
Prospects and risks
The HCMC plan deserves recognition for acknowledging that the current English teaching model is ineffective, and for daring to set quantifiable targets. This differs from many previous education policy documents that only spoke of raising quality without measurement indices.
However, three major risks warrant monitoring:
- Risk of stratification: If schools meeting conditions are only those in central districts, the policy will accelerate the trend of parents relocating, buying homes near good schools — pushing real estate prices in these areas even higher while exacerbating educational inequality.
- Risk to teacher quality: Without clear retraining budgets and mechanisms to retain teachers, schools risk simply slapping an English label while actually having teachers teach in Vietnamese, with English appearing only on slides.
Risk of internal politics: The central Ministry of Education and Training still controls the national curriculum framework and graduation exams. HCMC can teach physics in English, but students still take national secondary graduation exams in Vietnamese. This mismatch, if not resolved through dialogue between the city and the Ministry, will distort the pilot program by the end — students would need to relearn in Vietnamese in their final year to prepare for exams.
Conclusion
HCMC's announcement is a serious step, not mere rhetoric. But between the announcement and a generation of students truly proficient in academic English lies a long distance — to be filled by teachers, budgets, school construction land, and political will sustained through multiple administrations.
What deserves observation over the next 18 to 24 months is not the percentage of schools participating in the pilot — that figure is easy to achieve on paper. What deserves observation is: how many teachers are retrained, how many schools in outer districts are included in the pilot list, and whether the central Ministry of Education adjusts graduation exams to recognize the bilingual pathway. These three questions, not the 10% figure, will determine whether this plan is genuine reform or merely a beautiful document.