This article highlights the need to bring education to the forefront of EU policies to promote sustainable development in Vietnam. The EU is increasingly concerned with promoting sustainable development worldwide. It does this in its aid policies, and since 2010, it has included in its trade agreements provisions on labour, environmental and gender rights. But what about education rights? This article analyses the role of the EU and the Vietnamese government in the field of education. It argues that both actors could pay more attention to education, and in particular to the problem of unequal access to education for poor and minority children in Vietnam. To improve educational opportunity, both direct funding for the system and contextual support for students are needed. In remote and poor areas, Vietnam and the EU should provide increased salaries for teachers to reduce corruption, funding to support families, local social enterprises and improved local infrastructure. The article ‘double-decenters’ the study of European foreign policy by (1) focusing first on education policy issues in the targeted state and then on EU policy and (2) listening not only to the government but also the citizens of Vietnam.
Policy implications
- Education needs to be brought to the forefront of policies by states and international organisations to promote sustainable development. It is the priority of citizens worldwide.
- Only seven per cent of EU development aid goes to education. This must change.
- Policymakers must understand education policies as providing education for all, including children and adults, women and men, the disabled, the poor and minorities. They should focus on making education free and compulsory until the end of secondary education. In remote and poor areas, states and organisations should provide increased salaries for teachers to reduce corruption and fund families, infrastructure and local social enterprises.
- Vietnam could focus on free education at primary and secondary levels, higher salaries for teachers in poor and remote areas and lifelong education for all.
- The EU must bring education to the forefront of its development aid policy. This should be the case even when education is not the main priority of governments in partner states, as it is, at least in the case of Vietnam, the priority of citizens.
- As the international community spends 11 per cent of development aid for education, the EU should allocate at least this percentage of its own development aid to the global South.
- The EU could use its trade agreements to encourage companies worldwide to ensure lifelong training and to discuss progress on UNESCO recommendations on lifelong education for all.
- The EU could ‘double-decentre’ its policies to listen not only to the concerns of governments in partner states but also to citizens through the organisation of civil society forums.
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