10/06/2023
The total number of out-of-school children from 5-14 years of age has been reduced significantly and the greatest reduction was observed among five-year-old pre-primary school children, according to the “Out-of-school Children: Viet Nam Country Study 2016” released today by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) and UNICEF.
According to this study, the percentage of ethnic minority children who have never attended school or who dropped out (out of school children) in 2014 was significantly less than in 2009. The Khmer and the H'Mong made significant progress over the five-year period, but they still had the highest out-of-school rates of all the ethnic minority groups. The study also showed a large disparity in the out-of-school rates for the poorest and the richest households, and the difference increased with the level of education. For the 5-year-olds, the percentage of out-of-school children from the poorest households was 3 times higher than those from the richest households. This difference increased to 5.5 times higher for the children of primary school age and 10 times higher for the children of lower secondary school age. Children of primary and lower secondary school age in rural areas were more disadvantaged than those in urban areas in all the regions, especially the children in the rural parts of the mountainous Northern Midlands and the Central Highlands. Migrant groups consistently perform worse than non-migrant groups and the difference also increases with age. Migrant families have a higher rate of out of school children aged 5 than that of non-migrant families, specifically at 1.2 times at the age of 5, 1.6 times at primary school age and 1.7 times at lower secondary age.
