Examining the Cultural Divergence on Achievement Gap in Vietnam

• In Event: Demographic Variables and Their Impact on the Development of Education

Proposal

In 2012, Vietnam achieved remarkable success in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), ranking 8th in science, 17th in math, and 19th in reading out of 63 participating countries. This achievement placed Vietnam ahead of many developed and developing nations. My research investigates the factors that contributed to this extraordinary performance, especially since structural factors—such as child, household, and school characteristics—only account for about 30% of the variance in educational outcomes (Dang et al., 2023). Dang et al. (2023) and Asadullah et al. (2020) suggest that further research is needed to understand the success of Vietnamese students, and hint that culture might play a significant role. Many high-performing countries, like China, Korea, Japan, and Singapore, share a similar Confucian cultural heritage with Vietnam, which may partly explain these high scores.

Understanding cultural impacts requires an analysis of historical contexts and institutional structures rather than focusing on biological or innate factors (Wallace, 2023). In Vietnam, the Northern region was exposed to the Confucian meritocratic system early on due to the Han Dynasty’s influence. Success in the imperial civil examinations, modeled after China’s Keju system, was essential for gaining power and status in the Dai Viet empire. Education in the North became a vehicle for reproducing social status, wealth, and power (London, 2011). In contrast, the Southern regions of Vietnam, annexed later from the Champa and Khmer empires, followed different educational traditions. Education in these regions was more religiously oriented and did not emphasize meritocratic values as much as in the North (Giang, 2022; Nhean, 2017).

These distinct historical educational systems have contributed to variations in academic motivation and achievement between different regions of Vietnam. There is a positive correlation between the historical density of jinshi (the highest qualification in the imperial exam) and the number of schooling years in 2010, influenced by cultural transmission, educational infrastructure, social capital, and political elites (Chen, 2023). Vu and Yamada (2023) also show that the number of successful candidates in the Vietnamese imperial exams (1075–1919) has had a long-term effect on current educational attainment levels in these regions. This suggests that traditions of human capital investment and cultural factors contribute to persistent educational outcomes. However, their research has limitations, such as incomplete data following the abolition of the exams, the migration of elites, and the impact of significant events like French colonization and the Vietnam War.

My research seeks to provide a more comprehensive explanation of regional inequalities in education within Vietnam. I propose the following hypotheses for my study:
1. In the North, education is seen as a vital path to upward social mobility, a view rooted in its meritocratic traditions. In contrast, this ideology is less prevalent in the South.
2. The collectivist culture in the North provides external motivation for students to perform well academically.
Based on these hypotheses, I predict that provinces with a longer history of Confucian institutional influence will show better academic performance than those with a shorter exposure to the imperial examination system.

In the first phase of my empirical strategy, I will regress district-level test scores on the time since annexation to historical Vietnam, controlling for other potential confounding factors. I agree with Ho et al. (2022) that Vietnam’s expansion to the South was a gradual process, leading to the cultural differences observed today. The regression model measures the probability of scoring in the top 90th percentile in Math, English and Literature in the 2020 National Entrance Examinations to University (NEEU). The key independent variable is the time since a district’s annexation to historical Vietnam, which serves as a proxy for Confucian influence. For robustness checks, I will use spatial Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD), I will analyze disparities in public and household investment in education, as well as student aspirations, across different regions.

Preliminary regression results show that log(Time to Annexation) positively and significantly influences the probability of having student with the 90th in Math Scores (coefficient = 2.83714, p-value < 2.2e-16), Literature Scores (coefficient = 4.20560, p-value = 1.677e-12), and Foreign Language Score (coefficient = 0.80440, p-value = 0.002094). This suggests that both historical and economic factors play important roles in explaining academic performance in Vietnam. In the second part of the analysis, while total education and tuition expenditures are not significantly impacted, spending on school contributions and cram school fees is significantly higher in the treatment zone.

Overall, the results show a positive correlation between the time of annexation and high exam scores. This suggests that regions with a longer history of being part of historical Vietnam, and thus greater exposure to Confucian institutional influence, tend to perform better academically. These findings support the hypothesis that cultural and historical factors continue to play a crucial role in shaping educational outcomes in Vietnam.

Author

• Thao Phuong Pham, The University of Wisconsin-Madison