Why Việt Nam’s Universities Keep Falling Behind

On May 16, 2026, at a ceremony marking the 120th anniversary of Vietnam National University, Hà Nội, Communist Party General Secretary Tô Lâm called on the university to build an “open, liberal academic environment.” [1] He urged the removal of barriers to academic freedom, aiming to transform the university into a place willing to “lead and experiment” and to generate knowledge for an economy driven by science and technology.

However, less than two months later, the Vietnam Veterans newspaper published an article titled “The Dangers of ‘Liberal Education.’” [2] Warning that intellectual freedom, critical thinking, and pluralistic approaches could lead the education system astray, the article sparked a wave of opposition against the concept. 

The same idea was suddenly being presented in two radically different ways: as an essential step forward for Việt Nam’s universities, or as a dangerous threat.

This raises a question: What is the actual state of education in Việt Nam, and higher education in particular?

During this year’s high school graduation examination, cheating in Tuyên Quang revived memories of the score-manipulation scandals in Hà Giang, Sơn La, and Hòa Bình eight years earlier. [3] In 2018, scores were inflated on more than 500 exam papers across the three provinces. [4] In 2026, misconduct resurfaced in a different form, with candidates being guided and prompted inside examination rooms.

While cheating on university admissions does not directly prove that Việt Nam’s universities are weak, it exposes a flawed admissions process that remains fixated on quantifiable, manipulable outcomes. Under the meaning of “liberal” education invoked by the general secretary, these entrance examinations can assess a person’s ability to solve problems with predetermined answers, but they cannot assess a student’s potential to identify and solve questions for which no answer yet exists.

Furthermore, the backlash against “liberal education” reveals a persistent problem. Many still view the very capacity for independent thought—the goal of a liberal education—with suspicion. What, then, should Việt Nam’s higher education system aspire to become, and where exactly is it stuck?

Separating Research From Teaching

At the highest levels, Việt Nam’s leaders continue to speak about innovation, academic freedom, and an “era of national rise.” [5] Yet from the threshold of university admission to life inside the institutions themselves, the old problems have not disappeared.

Consider Vietnam National University, Hà Nội, where Tô Lâm delivered his speech in May. It traces its origins to Indochina University, [6] which the French colonial administration established in 1906. Its original dual mission was to disseminate European knowledge and methods and to train local personnel for the colonial bureaucracy. [7] In other words, the first modern university in Việt Nam was, above all, an instrument of governance.

Knowledge, however, produced an unintended result. Students acquired more than just professional training; they also learned about law, history, philosophy, and new political ideas. [8] This environment educated intellectuals and revolutionary activists who would later help dismantle the very regime that had established the university, with Võ Nguyên Giáp and Trường Chinh serving as two prominent examples. [9] [10] [11] 

This history illustrates a feature of universities that is difficult to control: A state can establish a university to serve a particular objective, but it cannot easily determine what people will think after they encounter knowledge.

After the colonial regime collapsed, North Việt Nam reorganized higher education along Soviet lines. Universities divided their programs by discipline to train teachers, doctors, engineers, and state officials, while they explicitly separated research from teaching and assigned it to specialized institutes. [12] 

This model helped Việt Nam rapidly develop a professional workforce, but it involved a major trade-off. Universities became primarily teaching institutions, no longer closely connected to research. [13] According to the World Bank, this separation weakened research capacity and left Việt Nam with a centrally managed system of narrowly specialized institutions. [14]

In an interview with Luat Khoa Magazine, Professor Vũ Tường of the University of Oregon, an expert on political science and the modern history of Việt Nam, noted that the Soviet model’s influence lasted longer in Việt Nam than in many other countries. As late as the 1980s, Việt Nam was still sending large numbers of students to the Soviet Union, and many of those educated during that period later held leadership positions at current educational institutions. 

Vũ Tường explained that while the Soviet model helped develop some relatively strong natural science disciplines, it also caused long-term flaws in education governance and the social sciences. Consequently, Việt Nam’s universities may have performed reasonably well in training workers, but they have not succeeded in becoming institutions that produce new knowledge.

A Lingering Soviet Influence

During the same period, Soviet influence similarly shaped China’s socialist trajectory. Yet, China has since developed universities capable of competing with the world’s leading institutions, [15] with Tsinghua University and Peking University emerging as influential global centers of teaching and research. To reach that point, however, China’s higher education system had to endure a period that closely mirrored Việt Nam’s. [16]

After 1949, China organized higher education along Soviet lines, dividing comprehensive universities into specialized institutions under centralized state control. [17] However, these similarities did not last. China began moving away from the Soviet orbit in the 1960s, and by the end of the 1970s, it had opened to the West to rebuild its universities along a different path. [18]

Speaking with Luat Khoa Magazine, Vũ Tường outlined three historical advantages that enabled this transformation: 

First, China had established the foundations of a modern university system decades earlier than Việt Nam; Peiyang University (now Tianjin University) was founded in 1895, and the Imperial University of Peking (now Peking University) followed three years later.

Second, because China split with the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, the Soviet system’s direct influence was shorter-lived than it was in Việt Nam. 

Third, China developed close relations with the United States during the 1980s, sending large numbers of scholars to the West who later returned to restore the country’s universities after the Cultural Revolution.

However, these historical advantages do not excuse Việt Nam’s failure to recognize its own systemic problems and decisively abandon a model that constrained its development. China succeeded because it recognized how to leverage its advantages and adapt to a changing world.

Furthermore, Beijing made a crucial policy choice: it did not distribute resources evenly. Through Project 211 and Project 985, China concentrated funding, laboratories, foreign-trained faculty, and elite students into a select group of universities. [19] [20]

In contrast, while Việt Nam also pursued Đổi Mới, opened its economy, and sent students abroad, it did not restructure its university system around research with the same speed or scale. Although university enrollment grew rapidly after Đổi Mới—an important achievement that ended the era of elite exclusivity—a system does not inherently become stronger simply because it becomes larger.

Misunderstanding University Autonomy

Since the mid-2010s, “university autonomy” has become one of the central promises of education reform in Việt Nam. [21] In practice, however, autonomy has often been understood primarily in financial terms: The state reduces or changes its regular funding, universities must generate their own revenue, and the most obvious source is tuition. [22] 

Autonomy can therefore become little more than a directive to manage independently. 

As the World Bank has observed, people in Việt Nam often narrowly equate university autonomy with reducing or ending state financial support. [23] This heavy dependence on tuition not only places immense pressure on students, but it also means universities remain constrained in their academic, staffing, and organizational decisions.

In an interview with Luật Khoa Magazine, Vũ Tường explained that genuine autonomy must be reflected in specific decisions, such as what programs a university may offer, how it teaches, which faculty members it hires, and which research priorities it pursues. 

“In the United States, no one tells universities what subjects they must teach or how they must teach them. Those are decisions for the university,” Vũ Tường said. 

He added that while universities in the United States must still comply with the law, accreditation requirements, and professional standards, the state does not directly manage their day-to-day academic affairs. This is the difference between managing a university and regulating its quality.

Autonomy must also be reflected in how faculty work is organized, giving academics enough room to develop. At the University of Oregon, Vũ Tường told Luật Khoa Magazine that he devotes 40% of his time to research, 40% to teaching, and 20% to administrative work. Faculty members are unlikely to produce new knowledge if research is something they can pursue only with whatever time remains after their other mandatory duties.

Financial autonomy may help universities balance their budgets and become more independent, but academic autonomy allows them to decide what kind of institution they want to become. Even a university with ample funding, advanced laboratories, and excellent professors will not necessarily produce new knowledge. The people inside it must also be permitted to ask new questions. This is why “liberal education” has become a motto—or at least a slogan—at many universities.

The Fear of Liberal Education

“Liberal education” may be where Việt Nam’s ambitions for education reform encounter their sharpest contradiction. 

General Secretary Tô Lâm has spoken about the concept on multiple occasions. At Vietnam National University, Hà Nội, he called for an open, liberal academic environment, academic freedom, and educational models willing to experiment. Earlier, at the University of Oxford, he praised the institution’s tradition of intellectual openness and identified science, technology, and innovation as new engines of development. [24] 

Judging from these remarks, the direction appears clear: Việt Nam wants strong research universities capable of mastering technology and cultivating creative individuals. Yet, almost simultaneously, conservative factions portrayed “liberal education” as an ideological threat and the seed of a “color revolution.” [25] 

While there is no evidence that these attacks reflected direct instructions from Tô Lâm or a unified position among the entire leadership, their simultaneous emergence points to a conflict within the system. At the highest levels, the country’s leader speaks of academic freedom and producing individuals willing to lead. Below him, voices claiming to defend the state’s ideological foundation treat those very same values with intense suspicion.

Teaching students about history and national values does not necessarily conflict with encouraging them to think independently. The conflict arises only when ideological education is no longer understood as providing a system of values for students to examine but rather as requiring them to reach a predetermined conclusion. 

Liberal education becomes threatening to this model because it allows students to encounter multiple interpretations, grants faculty members the right to choose their research questions, and requires academic conclusions to be assessed through rigorous methodology and evidence—even when those conclusions displease administrators.

“If education produces only people who know how to follow orders and serve as tools, then liberal education truly is unnecessary,” Vũ Tường told Luật Khoa Magazine. “But that approach will only keep Việt Nam working for foreign employers in the short term.” 

In practice, an economy built on outsourced manufacturing relies on people who can precisely follow processes designed elsewhere. Conversely, an innovation economy requires individuals who can question those processes, identify what fails, and propose a different approach.

By its leaders’ own stated goals, Việt Nam clearly does not want to remain an outsourced manufacturing economy. This economic aspiration requires academic liberty. 

A 2024 study published in PLOS ONE found a positive relationship between academic freedom and innovation, using data from 157 countries between 1900 and 2015. [26] It demonstrated that expansions in academic freedom were associated with significant increases in new inventions and patents. 

While the study did not suggest that academic freedom alone automatically produces inventions—funding, markets, infrastructure, and human resources remain vital—the findings prove that academic freedom and liberal education are not merely decorative slogans. They are part of the foundation required to generate the innovation and creativity that Việt Nam’s leaders persistently call for.

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Tô Lâm likely has the ambition to reform education. The harder question, however, is whether the system is prepared to acknowledge its existing weaknesses, accept the need for change at the level of its most basic assumptions, and overcome its deeply ingrained misconceptions and fears.

Along that path, those in authority must also accept the natural consequence of liberal education—the very quality that gives education its power but continues to frighten many people. Students, faculty members, and scientists pursuing knowledge must be allowed to reach answers that differ from what the system expects, rather than being confined to predetermined answer frameworks. 

Otherwise, these new goals may simply lead the system back to its old problems, just as examination cheating returned after eight years, only in a different form.

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This article was written in Vietnamese and published in Luật Khoa Magazine on July 31, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine translated it into English.

1. Editorial Board. “Remarks by General Secretary and President Tô Lâm at the Ceremony Marking the 120th Anniversary of Việt Nam National University, Hanoi.” Government News, May 16, 2026. https://baochinhphu.vn/phat-bieu-cua-tong-bi-thu-chu-tich-nuoc-to-lam-tai-le-ky-niem-120-nam-ngay-truyen-thong-dai-hoc-quoc-gia-ha-noi-102260516110407028.htm.
2. Hà Nguyên Cát. “The Dangers of ‘Liberal Education.’” Việt Nam Veterans Newspaper, July 12, 2026. https://cuuchienbinh.vn/nguy-hai-cua-giao-duc-khai-phong-d43784.html.
3. Editorial Board. “Violations at the Tuyên Quang Specialized High School Examination Site: 15 More Suspects Charged.” Government News, July 13, 2026. https://baochinhphu.vn/vi-pham-tai-diem-thi-truong-thpt-chuyen-tuyen-quang-khoi-to-them-15-bi-can-10226071309314249.htm.
4. Lê, L. “A Full Account of the Shocking 2018 National High School Examination Score-Fraud Scandal.” Tiền Phong Online, July 7, 2026. https://hoahoctro.tienphong.vn/toan-canh-vu-gian-lan-diem-thi-thpt-quoc-gia-2018-gay-chan-dong-be-boi-bi-phanh-phui-post1857592.tpo.
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6. “The Tumultuous History of Indochina University: The Effects of French Colonial Policy.” Việt Nam National University, Hanoi, 2021. https://vnu.edu.vn/lich-su-thang-tram-cua-dh-dong-duong-a-nhung-tac-dong-tu-chinh-sach-cua-chinh-quyen-thuc-dan-phap-post19250.html.
7. “Exploring the Intellectual Legacy of Indochina University: National Identity, Science, Liberal Education, and Humanism.” Việt Nam National University, Hanoi, 2021. https://vnu.edu.vn/-post39901.html.
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9. “Preserving an ‘Academic Heart’ in the Capital.” Việt Nam National University, Hanoi, 2021. https://vnu.edu.vn/giu-mot-trai-tim-hoc-thuat-giua-long-thu-do-post39616.html.
10. “Võ Nguyên Giáp: Former Student of Indochina University’s School of Law.” Việt Nam National University, Hanoi, 2021. https://vnu.edu.vn/vo-nguyen-giap-a-cuu-sinh-vien-truong-luat–dh-dong-duong-post36126.html.
11. “Comrade Trường Chinh: A Great Cultural Figure and an Outstanding Leader of Việt Nam’s Revolution.” Việt Nam National University, Hanoi, 2021. https://vnu.edu.vn/dong-chi-truong-chinh-nha-van-hoa-lon-nha-lanh-dao-kiet-xuat-cua-cach-mang-viet-nam-post2822.html.
12. University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Việt Nam National University, Hanoi. “History and Development.” November 23, 2020. https://ussh.vnu.edu.vn/vi/page/lich-su-phat-trien.html.
13. Department of History. “Training Vietnamese Cadres in the Soviet Union: Some Observations by Lê Văn Thịnh.” 2023. https://his.ussh.vnu.edu.vn/vi/news/to-thi-hien/dao-tao-can-bo-viet-nam-o-lien-xo-vai-nhan-dinh-5698.html.
14. Vietnam: Higher Education and Skills for Growth Human Development Department East Asia and Pacific Region The World Bank. (2008). https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/439591468338403597/pdf/444280ESW0WHIT1al1July08020081final.pdf
15. Dương Tâm. “How Chinese Universities Rose to Global Prominence.” VnExpress, December 17, 2023. https://vnexpress.net/con-duong-dua-dai-hoc-trung-quoc-vuon-tam-the-gioi-4687134.html.
16. Shen, W., Zhang, H., & Liu, C. (2022). Toward a Chinese model: De-Sovietization reforms of China’s higher education in the 1980s and 1990s. International Journal of Chinese Education, 11(3), 2212585X2211249. https://doi.org/10.1177/2212585×221124936
17. See [16]
18. See [16]
19. Xinhua. “China Strives for World-Class Universities, Courses.” Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, September 21, 2017. https://en.moe.gov.cn/Specials/Review/Highlights/201806/t20180606_338548.html.
20. Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. “What We Do.” Accessed August 6, 2026. https://en.moe.gov.cn/about_MOE/what_we_do/.
21. Government of Việt Nam. “Resolution No. 77/NQ-CP on Piloting Reforms to the Operating Mechanisms of Public Higher Education Institutions, 2014–2017.” October 24, 2014. Government Portal. https://vanban.chinhphu.vn/default.aspx?docid=177020&pageid=27160.
22. Tran, N., Trang, H., Dao, H., Banh, D., & Vo. (n.d.). Policy note on “Higher Education Financing in Vietnam: Strategic priorities and policy options”. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099062823070547678/pdf/P17811209b96300a09154049f2039bb6e0.pdf
23. Parajuli, D., Vo, D., Salmi, J., Thi, N., & Tran, A. (2020, October 15). Improving the Performance of Higher Education in Vietnam Improving The Performance Of Higher Education In Vietnam Strategic Priorities and Policy Options. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/347431588175259657/pdf/Improving-the-Performance-of-Higher-Education-in-Vietnam-Strategic-Priorities-and-Policy-Options.pdf
24. Hạnh Nguyên. “General Secretary Tô Lâm Delivers Policy Address at the University of Oxford.” Nhân Dân Online, October 29, 2025. https://nhandan.vn/tong-bi-thu-to-lam-phat-bieu-chinh-sach-tai-dai-hoc-oxford-post918834.html.
25. BBC News Tiếng Việt. “A Storm of Denunciations Sweeps Through Liberal Education, Forcing Deputy Prime Minister Lê Tiến Châu to Self-Censor.” July 13, 2026. https://www.bbc.com/vietnamese/articles/czj8r02p8nyo.
26. Audretsch, D. B., Fisch, C., Franzoni, C., Momtaz, P. P., & Vismara, S. (2024). Academic freedom and innovation. PLOS ONE, 19(6), e0304560. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304560