MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS, HO CHI MINH CITY ---------------------------- NGO HOANG THAO TRANG DETERMINANTS OF SECONDARY SCHOOL DROPOUT IN VIET NAM MASTER OF PUBLIC POLICY THESIS HO CHI MINH CITY - 2010 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS, HO CHI MINH CITY FULBRIGHT ECONOMICS TEACHING PROGRAME -------------------------------- NGO HOANG THAO TRANG DETERMINANTS OF SECONDARY SCHOOL DROPOUT IN VIET NAM Public Policy Major Code: 603114 MASTER OF PUBLIC POLICY THESIS SUPERVISOR Dr. PINCUS HO CHI MINH CITY - 2010 CERTIFICATION I certify that the substance of the thesis has not already been submitted for any degree and is not being currently submitted for any other degrees. I certify that to the best of my knowledge any help received in preparing the thesis and all sources used have been acknowledged in the thesis. The study does not necessarily reflect the views of the Ho Chi Minh City Economics University or Fulbright Economics Teaching Program.
Author Ngo Hoang Thao Trang ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deep gratitude to my parents who always encourages me in my life and my studying. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my supervisor, Dr. Pincus, who has help me in performing the thesis. With rich knowledge, experience and enthusiasm, he has effectively contributed to my thesis.
I am graceful to Dr. Nguyen Hoang Bao, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Lam for thoughtful and valuable comments on the early version of my work. I would like to thank all teachers in Fulbright Economics Teaching Program, who have retransmitted a lot of their knowledge and experience to me.
Last but not least, I express my thanks to all of my friends who help and motivate me in performing the study. Ngo Hoang Thao Trang Ho Chi Minh City - May, 2010 ABSTRACT The study examines the effects of individual, household, community, and regional level on the dropout behavior of the child in secondary school in Vietnam by using the logistic regression model. The results of the empirical model confirmed age, working hours per year, education of parents, regions have large effects on the probability of leaving school. Meanwhile, household expenditure, the number of siblings, the proportion of pupils with reduced contributions, the pupil to teacher ratio, the pupil to classrooms ratio and the proportion of classrooms with good blackboards have small effects on the probability of leaving school.
Therefore, an effective policy recommendation to reduce the dropout rate in secondary schools in Vietnam is to focus on investing more human capital in the present generation as well as supporting the important role of parent in education, reducing working hours per year of children and concentrating on the Mekong Delta and South East. Key words: School dropout; secondary school. ABBREVIATIONS GSO: General Statistic Office MOLISA: Ministry Of Labor –Invalids and Social Affairs VHLSS: Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION……………………………………….2 The scope and the purpose of the study….3 Research questions of the study.4 The structure of the study………….03 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………….1 Demand for education…………………………………………….2 Education production function………………………………….3 The framework of determinants of the dropout ….4 Empirical studies of school leaving in Viet Nam……….19 CHAPTER 3: OVERVIEW OF SECONDARY SCHOOL IN VIET NAM.1 Schooling trends and dropouts from secondary school in Vietnam…………….2 Analyzing opportunities to access secondary school in Vietnam….26 CHAPTER 4: METHODOLOGY AND ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK…………………………………………………….4 Variables in the empirical model………………….36 CHAPTER 5: ANALYZING DETERMINANTS OF DROPOUT SECONDARY SCHOOL IN VIETNAM………………………………………………….3 Interpretation and discussion………………….3 Limitations of the study.…………………………………………………………60 REFERENCES APPENDIX LIST OF TABLES Table 5.1: Logistic regression of school dropout as a function of selected individual, household, school and demographic characteristics, and the children sample aged 11-18, VHLSS 2006……………………………………………………………….2: Marginal effects of the probability of dropping out…….3: Predicted dropout probabilty of children by education level of parents…………………………………………………………………….4: Predicted probability of dropping out by hours working per year…………………………………………………………………………………54 Table 5.5: Predicted probability of dropping out by region……………………….55 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1: Number of pupils in secondary school in Vietnam from 1999- 2006….2: Secondary education dropout and repeat rate, 1999 – 2004 …….3 Secondary education dropout and repeat quantities, 1994-2004….1: Dropout rate in Vietnam in 2006, by gender and by age…………….2: Dropout rate in Vietnam in 2006, by hours working per year…………39 Figure 5.3: Dropout rate in Vietnam in 2006, by household expenditure…………39 Figure 5.4: Dropout rate in Vietnam in 2006, by parent educational level.5: Dropout rate of Vietnam in 2006, by urban and regions………………42 Figure 5.6: Conditional effect plot of dropout probability according to educational level of parents…………………………………………………………………….7: Conditional effect plot of dropout probability according to hours working per year………………………………………………………………….8: Conditional effect plot of dropout probability by regions.1 Problem Statement Education is widely considered as an engine of economic and social development. The power of schooling is to raise incomes, to increase productivity and to promote social equity.
Therefore, educational expansion at all levels is important for poor countries and the poor because it is the most powerful instrument for a society to escape from poverty (World Bank, 1999). The importance of public investment in education for economic development is shown by the success of the East Asian economies such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea. Moreover, research on returns to education often finds that returns to the primary level are highest and returns to secondary level are the second highest (Psacharopoulos and Anthony, 2002). Vietnam has recorded achievements in education and developed a comprehensive education and training system.
Nevertheless, Vietnam is facing a crisis in terms of the quality of education at all levels and a crisis of dropouts of pupils. For years from 2001 to 2005, more than four million pupils have left school: more than one million at the primary level, two million at the lower secondary level and a million at upper secondary level. According to statistics for the first semester of the year 2008-2009 from the Ministry of Education and Training, among fifteen million pupils in Vietnam, eighty six thousand have dropped out of school: nine 2 thousand at the primary level, forty thousand at the lower secondary level and thirty eight thousand at the upper secondary level. The Mekong Delta had the highest number of dropouts at twenty five thousand.
The Central Highlands had eleven thousand dropouts and the North-West 4,600 dropouts. The consequence of pupils dropping out include private and public costs. For individuals, they cannot get skilled employment so they earn little money and face many risks and discrimination in society. For the country, dropouts reduce the rate of growth of the skilled labor force.
Moreover, dropouts make the gap between the poor and the rich larger. Motivated by this situation, this study analyzes the determinants of the dropout rate from secondary school in Vietnam. The contribution of the study is to find out which factors influence the dropout rate and to suggest policies to reduce it.2 The scope and the purpose of the study The study focuses on analyzing empirically factors that affect dropout behavior of children at the individual, household and school level. The analysis is carried out on the case of dropouts from the secondary level in Vietnam in 2006.
The study aims at identifying the degree of impact of factors affecting the dropout rate from secondary school. The study provides input for policy makers formulating policies to reduce the dropout rate at the secondary level in Vietnam.3 Research questions of the study The study attempts to answer the central question: What are the most prominent factors affecting secondary school dropouts in Vietnam?. In order to answer the central question, some following sub –questions should be addressed: What are the factors theoretically affecting dropouts? To what extent do these factors explain dropouts at the secondary level in Vietnam? What should be done to reduce dropouts from secondary school in Vietnam? 1.4 The structure of the study The study consists of six chapters. Following this introduction, the rest of the study is structured as follows.
Chapter 2 is devoted to the literature review in order to provide the analytical framework for the thesis. It will present concepts, discuss the theoretical background, and then lay out a framework for studying the determinant of school dropouts and review empirical studies concerning dropouts in Vietnam. Chapter 3 is an overview of secondary schools in Vietnam. The methodology and empirical model are presented in Chapter 4.
It will describe the dataset, set up the methodology, explain the empirical model and describe the variables used. Chapter 5 reports and discusses the empirical results of the model. Chapter 6 concludes the study with a summary of the main findings and policy recommendations. It also includes some remarks on the limitations of the study.
4 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW Chapter 2 provides a review of the conceptual, theoretical and empirical studies of the dropout behavior of children. This chapter starts its journey with the concept of school dropouts. Next, it lays out the theoretical background on educational demand at the individual level and the household level. Then it presents a survey of the literature on key dropout factors.
It discusses empirical studies in Vietnam in order to show the effects of such factors on dropouts.1 Concepts As a first step, it is useful to provide the concept of school dropouts used in the study. According to MOET, a child is viewed as a dropout if he or she did not continue his or her schooling. Vo Tri Thanh and Trinh Quang Long (2005) criticize this definition since it does not count those who do not continue to enroll in school after having finished a given grade. This may lead to an underestimation of school dropouts.
In the study, a child is a dropout if he or she has not completely enrolled in school in the twelve months prior to the survey, given that he or she used to enroll in school sometime before.2 Theoretical background This sub section is devoted to a review of the main literature relating to investment in education on the demand and supply sides. Then it discusses factors affecting dropouts in recent empirical studies. The subsection is not intended as a complete and extensive review, it merely sets the stage by presenting relevant considerations.1 Demand for education An elegant theoretical framework regarding determinants of the optimal length of education has evolved from the human capital theory of Becker (1967) and Ben- Porath (1967) [cited in Ranasinghe (1999)]. Human capital theory argues that additional schooling generates benefits in terms of enhanced future earnings and entails direct costs such as expenditures on school tuition and opportunity costs associated with delayed entry into the labor market.
The individuals will compare the direct and the opportunity costs of schooling with its future benefits. The investment will continue so long as the marginal rate of return to additional schooling equals the marginal rate of the cost of education. According to the theory of Becker (1967), differences in the length of schooling may be due to differences in the discount rate or due to differences in the rate of return to education or the covariance between the two. People with lower discount rates (and low costs) and those with higher rates of return will stay longer in school than others do.
Another schooling model developed in the spirit of Becker is Ben-Porath (1967). Ben – Porath (1967) takes into consideration the dynamic nature of human capital 6 formation to develop his model. In general, the human capital models of Becker (1967) and Ben-Porath (1967) generate similar testable hypotheses regarding the demand for education. However, in the Ben-Porath model (1967), some particular features are different from the Becker model.
Ben-Porath (1967) posits a direct role for age whereas Becker (1967) does not included age as a determinant of the equilibrium length of school. Next, the role of ability and family wealth is also different in the two models. According to Becker (1967), ability affects the rate of return. More able people stay longer in full time education because they have a higher rate of return.