VietNamNet Bridge - The late Lee Kwan Yew, during his visit to Vietnam in 2007, gave advice on how to develop Vietnam’s education. He said that if Vietnam won in the education race, it would win in economic development.

Lee said that Vietnam had great motivation and energy for development. Vietnam needs to develop a long term vision and take action to turn the vision into reality.

It is necessary for the government of Vietnam to follow a consistent and stable policy in order to create a smooth flow. If it does not, the flow will be interrupted. 

He cited stories about Singapore, Malaysia, the UK and the US that would be good lessons for Vietnam.

Retaining talent

Retaining talented workers and bringing their talent into full play was the first important lesson given by Lee.

Singapore, in the late 1970s, faced difficulties when five percent of qualified workers left the country. 

The brain-drain was predicted to become serious as western countries changed their immigration policies, accepting immigrants from Asia.

Two important committees were then set up in Singapore – one was in charge of helping talented persons find good jobs in their major at university, and the other was in charge of gathering them in a society. As for excellent candidates, the committees tried to suggest jobs right before they finished school.

Singapore also set up two agencies in charge of attracting talents from India and regional countries. The foreign workers were described as the megabytes that help make the Singapore “computer” more powerful.

Good English skills: key for competition

Lee said that Singapore follows the “one language, many mother tongues” policy in bringing English into teaching curricula at Singaporean schools.

As for Vietnam, Lee recommended that Vietnamese universities should compile textbooks in English for some important training majors, such as technology, because if they only used Vietnamese textbooks, Vietnamese people would lag behind other countries.

Nowadays all Vietnamese engineers working in an international environment can use English proficiently.

Emphasizing the importance of English skills, Lee said Vietnam would lag behind even if Vietnamese only can read in English, but cannot listen and speak in English.

Lee suggested that the government of Vietnam should think of sending students in the north, Hanoi and Hai Phong, for example, to the south, where they can better learn how to make money. Meanwhile, it would be good to bring the elite from the south to northern universities.

He said that no matter what Vietnamese students study and what they expect to become – physicians or engineers – they should be equipped with the necessary skills for their future jobs.

Ngan Anh