Prime Minister Le Minh Hung speaks at the working session with the Ministry of Education and Training. Photo: VNA  

Prime Minister Le Minh Hung on April 25 chaired a working session with the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) to review priority tasks, address bottlenecks, and accelerate key reforms in the sector, during which he underscored education’s central role in sustaining Vietnam’s long-term economic growth.

PM Hung emphasised that the education and training sector carries an extensive and demanding workload, and has been consistently identified by the Party and the State as a top national priority, receiving special attention from the Politburo as well as Party General Secretary and State President To Lam.

He reaffirmed the pivotal role of the sector in delivering on the country’s development goals and targets, particularly through its contributions to total factor productivity, the pace of labour productivity growth, and the proportion of trained workforce.

The Government leader acknowledged the ministry’s efforts in advancing major reforms, including the completion of key legal frameworks, the introduction of policies to promote innovation ecosystems, and the expansion of high-quality training programmes in strategic and high-tech fields. The sector has also made strides in early childhood education, digital transformation, and fostering closer cooperation between the State, educational institutions, and enterprises.

However, he also pointed out persistent shortcomings that require urgent attention. These include delays in implementing policy frameworks and projects, slow restructuring of higher education and vocational training institutions, uneven quality across regions, localised teacher shortages, and gaps in infrastructure and teaching materials. The digitalisation of sector-wide data and administrative reform also remain a challenge.

The PM attributed these limitations largely to subjective factors, including insufficient awareness in some areas, lack of strong political determination, ineffective inter-agency coordination, and weak administrative discipline.

Therefore, PM Hung outlined a set of strategic directions, including the continued institutionalisation of the Party's guidelines into concrete policies, with a focus on streamlining governance under the principle that each task is assigned to a single lead agency.

Greater emphasis should be placed on planning, reorganising, and improving the quality and operational efficiency of public service units in education and training, he noted.

In parallel, the sector was tasked with accelerating the restructuring of universities and vocational institutions, and eliminating substandard entities. Strengthening early childhood education, ensuring the nationwide rollout of a unified general education textbook system from the 2026–2027 academic year, thorough preparations for the organisation of the upcoming high school graduation exam, and enhancing foreign language teaching - particularly the gradual adoption of English as a second language in schools - were also highlighted as priorities.

For higher education and vocational training, the PM called for stronger alignment with scientific research and technological development, particularly in emerging fields such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing. He emphasised the need for large-scale national programmes to train and retrain the workforce in strategic sectors, alongside expanded State-school-enterprise partnerships.

He also called for closer monitoring and stronger oversight of localities to ensure adequate staffing of teachers and school personnel in line with prescribed norms, and finalise and submit for approval preferential policies on salaries and allowances for educators, particularly those working in remote and disadvantaged areas.

Regarding sector-wide digital transformation, PM Hung directed the development of a unified architecture and governance framework, along with the standardisation of data systems. He stressed the need to expedite the completion of the national database on education and training, restructure administrative procedures toward the reuse of shared data and information, and further refine the regulatory framework for operations in the digital environment.

The PM also urged intensified efforts to simplify administrative procedures and improve the business environment in education, noting that even incremental reforms could yield immediate and substantial contributions to economic growth.

He also requested the MoET to expedite delayed policy proposals, including those on tuition and textbook support, scholarship funds, and the development of major universities into regional and global centres of excellence.

Reaffirming his expectations, PM Hung called on the ministry's leadership to act with greater initiative, determination, and accountability, focusing on removing bottlenecks and ensuring that reforms are translated into tangible outcomes./.