After gaining independence in 1945, the first major policy of the young Vietnamese state was not economic development, nor was it building factories or an army. In the first government meeting on September 3, 1945, President Ho Chi Minh proposed launching a campaign to “Eradicate Illiteracy,” treating “illiteracy” as a national catastrophe with the statement: “An ignorant nation is a weak nation.”
President Ho’s statement struck at the self-respect and pride of the entire nation and created a powerful wave of learning to read and write. Classes were established everywhere: in communal houses, temples, homes, and at market gates… Tens of thousands of volunteers taught without pay. And so, a young government with no resources managed to almost completely eliminate illiteracy in just two years. By the end of 1946, Northern Vietnam had gained more than 2.5 million newly literate people who could read and write.
That was an educational miracle we achieved in the past 100 years.
In late 2014, while on a business trip to India, I witnessed an earth-shattering political event: the defeat of the National Congress Party. Narendra Modi, leader of the opposition BJP party, became Prime Minister after nearly a century of Indian politics under the rule of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. What was shocking was that one of his campaign platforms—and subsequently the first action of Mr. Modi upon becoming Prime Minister—was to construct more than 111 million toilets in India by 2019 at a cost of around 32 billion USD. This story might sound absurd, but it was revolutionary for India.
As the most populous country and one of the poorest in the world, over 600 million Indians lacked access to toilets. The shortage of toilets in schools was one of the primary reasons leading female students to drop out. A lack of toilets led investors to hesitate to pour money into India because they could not walk in suits along streets where people relieved themselves in public. Solving the toilet problem, therefore, was pivotal in addressing disease outbreaks, increasing school attendance rates, protecting women, creating a friendly environment for investors, and thereby developing the economy.
Building toilets became a major obsession for Prime Minister Modi. In his campaign speeches, he always said: “Build toilets first, temples later.” Especially on India’s Independence Day, he stated: “Do we not feel pain when our mothers and sisters have to relieve themselves out on the street?… Can we really not afford to build toilets to protect the dignity of our mothers, sisters, and younger sisters?” The national shame conveyed through Mr. Modi’s appeal created a massive effect across all of India.
President Ho in Vietnam’s past, and Mr. Modi in India’s present, drove social revolutions by concentrating on solving just one thing—only one thing—that served as the most key lever to create powerful transformations in society.
Returning to the story of educational reform in Vietnam. The saddest event in the recent high school graduation exam was that the English score distribution showed over 80% scored average (5) or below. When reading those statistics, I cried. That number means that 12 years of teaching English to the recent cohort of students was almost all in vain. Entering the 21st century, our children are still “illiterate” in English. This is truly a humiliation for us.
I think “English illiteracy” is the first and most important obstacle to solve if we want to become a developed industrial nation. But do educational policymakers think so? I don’t think so, if not to say no.
Every revolution begins with a small key change that triggers a large chain reaction. So I would like to propose a small reform to eradicate English illiteracy: stop treating English as merely learning a foreign language. Turn the teaching of English into an urgent, vital task—just like teaching the mother tongue in Vietnam. An entire tenure of a Minister of Education and Training only needs to be dedicated to eradicating English “illiteracy” to be enough. And to start, only a small change is needed: teach English right from Grade 1 and triple the number of English class periods in primary school, from 2–4 periods to 6–12 periods a week.
The official duration for learning English at the primary level is currently far too little for students to absorb and use it fluently. A primary student is currently taught only 2 periods a week as an introduction until the end of Grade 2, and 4 periods a week starting from Grade 3. To use a language fluently, right from the early stage, a child must use it as much as possible. Teaching English, therefore, must start very early and continuously. Proof that doubling the number of class periods brings a breakthrough impact on learning quality is Ho Chi Minh City’s enhanced English program, through which students learn at least 2 extra periods of English at a cost of 200,000–400,000 VND per month. The English proficiency of most students following this program has increased significantly compared to those who do not.
A sudden increase in the number of English class periods will create the momentum to choose better and more effective curricula. Teachers and schools will know how to teach and how to implement it once the teaching hours have tripled. Parents will also save thousands of billions of Dong spent on sending their children to outside English centers and picking them up from extra classes.
I have calculated, tested, and can affirm that it costs a maximum of about 400,000 VND per month for public school students in big cities and about 200,000 VND per month in rural areas to double or triple the current number of periods with breakthrough quality. If parents and the state split the cost half and half, the state would only spend an extra 100,000–200,000 VND per month per primary student.
If eradicating illiteracy in 1945 changed the destiny of a nation and played a core role in maintaining independence and economic development; if building toilets is India’s pivotal social revolution in the coming years; then I believe launching a “Popular Education 2.0” movement to eradicate English “illiteracy” will decide the fate of Vietnam’s education over the next 10 years. To me, just that is enough to create a miracle.
