Everyone’s right to

education Limitations to high school enrollment from a gender perspective

Caroline Profeld Just & Linh Van

2015-03-18

Ha Giang - Field course Caroline & Linh

2015-03-18

Contents

Introduction ............................................................................................................ 2

Background ......................................................................................................... 2

Aim: .................................................................................................................... 4

Research Questions ............................................................................................ 4

Delimitations: ..................................................................................................... 4

Theoretical framework ........................................................................................... 5

Key concepts ...................................................................................................... 5

Theory of Structuration ...................................................................................... 6

Rational choice theory ........................................................................................ 7

Methodology ........................................................................................................... 7

Sampling ............................................................................................................. 8

Problems we encountered ................................................................................... 9

Semi-structured interviews ................................................................................. 9

Unstructured interviews .................................................................................... 10

Why we didn't use other methods ..................................................................... 10

Our presence ..................................................................................................... 10

Result analysis ...................................................................................................... 11

Why education is important.............................................................................. 11

The way people rationalize their answer .......................................................... 13

Conclusion: ........................................................................................................... 16

Recommendation .................................................................................................. 17

References ............................................................................................................ 19

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Introduction

Education is considered as one of the main points to not only develop individuals’

competence but also the social growths of a country (Fahimi& Moghadam, 2003). Stated

in a report named “Empowering Women, Developing Society: Female Education in the

Middle East and North Africa”, it is shown that education has direct effect on the

development of the economy of a country. A research done in 19 countries through the

World Education Indicators program proved that education has a long-term effect on the

economic growth as it is shown that the economic growth rate rise by 3.7 % when more

people participate in a higher level of school (OECD&UNESCO, 2002). That is why

investing in education, especially for the young generations, can be the “most important

investment a country can make in its people and its future” (Global partnership for

education, n.d.).

“Everyone has the right to education” is stated in article 26 of the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights (1948). The Fourth World Conference on Women (1995) acknowledged the

right and the great importance of girls’ education as it also states that “education is a

human right”, and girls’ literacy does not only benefit her but also the prosperity of her

family and society. This means that a welleducated girl can be more advanced in the

health, nutrition and education sectors, so that her family can have better cares and she is

more confident to make decisions in society (The Fourth World Conference on Women,

Bejing, 1995). The educational return to society for girls is also higher than boys

(Tembon&Fort, 2008). For example, the girls’ return to the schooling investment is 9.8%

on average, while it is 8.7% for boys (Psacharopoulos and Patrinos 2004, in Tembon&Fort,

2008). Girls’ education is essential; however, they seem to be at a disadvantage to boys

(UNICEF, 2014). Women are said to be two-thirds of the World’s illiterate (Girls’

education, 2012). In Vietnam, the percentage of the girls participating in high school is

49.1% (UNICEF Vietnam, 2010). The statistic of the highest finished level of education

for Ha Giang, shows that the portion of the boys finishing upper secondary school and

higher education is 11.3%, while this ratio for girls is only 10.1%, though only 80% of all

the boys in ages 5 and up and only 63% of all girls was included in this (Ministry of

Investment and planning, 2009).

As the global economy is taking a new turn toward and becomes more technological and

knowledge-based, higher education is significant (World Bank, 2000). To go higher in

education, the fundamental level needs being completed first. This means the high-school

completion. As high school education is essential for both boys and girls, it is interesting to

look into how people in Nam Dich rationalize their choice of attending high school or not

and the difference between boys and girls.

Background

Stated in article 35, education and training are in the top priority (The Constitution of the

Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, 1992). After the establishment in 1990, Ministry of

Education and Training becomes the government agency taking care of the educational

sectors (Tandukar, 2013). The education system is under the leadership of the government,

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more specifically the Ministry of Education and Training (Article 36, The Constitution of

the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, 1992). It is in the power of the State to make plan for

universal primary education.

In Vietnam, the education system consists of four levels: “early childhood care and

education”, “general education”, “vocational education” and “higher education” (World

Bank, n.d.).The general education compromising of primary education, lower and upper

secondary education, is the one that is of concern in this research. The primary and the

lower secondary education are universal (Education Law, 2005). Primary level, which is

from grade 1 to grade 5, is compulsory (World Bank, n.d.). However, there is no actual law

to fine the ones who do not follow it (World Banks, n.d.). Stated in Education in

Vietnam (n.d.) the lower secondary one (grade 6-9) is also a universal level, which means

everyone completing the primary can go for this level. The upper secondary (grade 10-12)

is a little bit different as the students have to meet a certain requirement through an

entrance exam, or through selection based on the results from grade 9. The primary and the

lower secondary education are under the governance of the People’s Committee at district

level, while the upper one is under the management of the People’s Committee at province

level (Education Law, 2005).

According to the Education Law (2005), the ethnic minorities or the ones in extreme

poverty are given some exceptions. For example, the students can start at a higher age

(Article 26), and the State can build up boarding or semi-boarding school for the ethnic

minorities (Article 61). Article 89 stated that the ethnic minorities in the areas with

difficulty in economic sector can have the fee subsidies.

Nam Dich, where this research is conducted, is one of the communes receiving the support

from program 135 (Decision2405/QD-TTg, 2013). 135 is the support program for the areas

where the socio-economics are extremely difficult, especially for the ethnic minority (Isee,

2011). According to Isee, this program has helped the human resource development of the

commune as it gives the support for the poor students so that they can attend in high

school. This program also has some training sessions with the officers in the commune to

advance their knowledge.

Research issue:

Vietnam has witnessed a high development in economic sector, which bring Vietnam to

become a lower-middle income country with 6.8 % of annual growth rate on average in

2010 (World Bank’s World Development Indicators n.d., in Asian Development Bank,

2012). To preserve its competitiveness, there is an urge for skilled labors (ADB, 2012).

One way to get skillful ones is to let them finish at least high school as it increases the

quality of the work forces (ADB, 2012). The national high school gross enrollment rate

reached 56.7% (ADB 2009, in UN World Data on Education, 2011). Stated in Report and

Recommendation of the President to the Board of Directors (2012), even though the

national high school enrollment rate rises, it seems like that the ethnic minority and the

girls have lower rate. In Ha Giang, fewer students from ethnic minority are in upper

secondary education as it is shown that 55.92% in ratio at the primary level decrease to

9.84% at high school level (General Statistic Office 2010, in ISee, 2011). The number of

boys attending high school in Ha Giang is 1.2 times more than girls (UNFPA, 2011).

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The initial findings from the first field visit in Nam Dich have been used as a small pilot

study to look at the school enrollment since education was our interest from the very first

step. At first, the drop-out rate and the reasons for it were subject to our concern. However,

it seems like the drop-out rate is not really high as it is only about 1% of all students

attending primary and lower secondary school. Poverty, social norms, and lack of

motivation are some of the listed reasons. As the drop-out rate is not really high and we

notice that the respondents' desire to go to high school is high, but they did not think they

could go, so we decided to look into that matter. Through the literature as well as the

primary findings, this study presses on the obstacle that both boys and girls in Nam Dich

face for being able to be in upper secondary school, and see whether the challenges for the

girls and the boys differ from each other or not.

Aim:

With this research, the aim is to find out factors limiting the chance of going to high school

for both boys and girls from different people’s opinions. This work also stresses on how

the differences between genders reproduce.

Research Questions

1. In Nam Dich people’ opinions, what are the reasons for going to high school or not?

2. Are these reasons affecting the genders differently? And if so; how and why?

Delimitations:

Since this study is conducted during a short amount of time, and with a low budget, the

range of it is too small to make a universal conclusion. It has also lead to delimitations

such as:

Even though the interviewees are from different ages, we will not make a discussion about

differences between generations. Since the study is meant to be an explorative research

with the intent on find an explanation to why the enrollment rates look the way they do, we

will not be able to account to the percentage of the different reasons why students do not

enroll.

Even though Nam Dich is a commune with a variety of different ethnic minorities, we will

not dwell on how these groups might face different challenges. We will neither look at if

there might be different suggested solutions. Ethnic belonging was not something that was

asked of in the interviews.

With this in mind the results can instead be used in future studies in the area.

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Theoretical framework

Key concepts

As this research focuses on education, and the problems that prevent the students from

going to high school from a gender perspective, it seems like that “ education”, “poverty”,

“social norms”, “gender equality” are some of the key concepts that need looking into for

better understanding.

Education is one of the essential elements inducing the growth of the development as it can

be considered as an enhanced tool for poverty eradication, health care, and gender equality

improvement, peace preservation (World Bank, 2014). According to UN, one more year in

school can help the individuals’ incomes rise with up to 10%. 171 million people in low

income countries can get out of poverty if they have fundamental reading skills and

knowledge (UN, 2010).In the private sector, the raise in income for one additional year of

schooling will be higher in the low and middle-income than in the high ones and this

returns are higher for girls than boys (UNICEF, 2015)

“Poverty” can be measured based on the earnings of household (UNDP, 2006). This

measurement is the most commonly used by economists as it is a quite clear way to view

poverty (UNDP, 2006). Another means to define poverty is based on the lack of material

and necessaries, which imply that the households can be in short of resources, like land,

and which leads to the lack of wealth (World Bank, 1999). The poverty line is the

minimum level of income that when one’s earning is behind the line then they are seen as

poor (World Banks n.d., in BBC, 2014), the poverty line is currently at $1.25 a day (World

Bank, 2014). In Vietnam; however, a household is considered as poor when the earnings is

less than 400,000 VND per person per month (Decision 9/2011/QĐ-TTG, 2011).

Education is considered as a way out for poverty, while poverty is seen as one of the

obstacles education faces (Engle&Black, n.d.). In developing countries, the possibility of

children’s going to school depends on the household’s wealth (Engle&Black, n.d.). As it is

shown in the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2007, among 80 participated countries, only

12% of the children in the richest one-fifth are not in school while the rate for the ones in

poorest fifth is 38%. This demonstrates that the chance to be in school for the children in

poverty is lesser than the ones in wealth.

UNICEF & UCSD (2012) verbalizes the idea of “social norms” as what is seen as normal

behaviors in some groups. This means that it is what people in these groups think to be

normal, they expect these kinds of action regardless of whether their actions are considered

appropriate or not. In Vietnam, social norms have quite significant impact on the gender

equality matter (OECD, 2014). Under the predominance of Confucianism, women are

treated as secondary citizens to men as they have limited civil liberties and the son bias

issue still remains (OECD, 2014). “Three Obedience and Four Virtues” in Confucianism

can be considered as representative for the submission role of women to men as the Three

Obedience is about the dependence of the women on her father, her husband, and later her

son (Taylor, 2004). According to Taylor (2004), the four virtues are designed for women

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with the decent look, the befitting speech, the morality, and indefatigable work. These two

together have bound women to the domestic sphere (Taylor, 2004).

In education context, “gender equality” does not only emphasis on the equal access and

participation in education, but also on the equal opportunities in social, economic and

political sphere as the result of education (UNESCO, 2012). Though 40% of women now

are in the global labor force, girls and women in poverty in remote areas still face the

gender inequality (World Bank, 2012). Education assists girls in getting out of the unequal

state by providing them with knowledge about gender equality. As stated in a report from

UNESCO (2014), the higher the education the girls have, the more chance for her to have a

say in decision-making matters (UNICEF, 2015). For example, she can decide on how

many children she wants to have, what she wants to do, and so on. Stated in Investment

case for education and equity (2015), girls’ education is essential for social development as

most of social impacts are subject to girls’ education. The women with higher education

are unlikely to perceive the husbands’ act of violence as an appropriate way to punish for

what is considered as the women’s unfitting behavior (UNICEF, 2015). In Vietnam, from

2010 to 2011, the percentage of women with no education who forgave their husband’s

violence accounted for almost 60%, while the ones with high-school education were below

20% (UNICEFT, 2015). The girls’ education does not only benefit them but also the

posterity. The children of higher-education mothers are more likely to have better health

care as their mothers have more understanding about vaccine, medicine and so on

(UNICEF, 2015). In South Asia, the children of the more educated mothers are more likely

to attend school than the one whose mothers have no education (EFA Global Monitoring

Report 2007, 2007). This shows that education helps to gain knowledge about gender

equality, when gender equality, specifically girls’ education, in return has a remarkable

effect on their children, as more and more will be allowed to be in school.

Theory of Structuration

The importance of education has been indicated throughout this study. However, there are

still children that are out of school. Anthony Giddens’s Theory of Structuration is chosen

in this theoretical framework as it focuses on the structure and human agency.

The work of Giddens stresses on the duality of structure, which means the structure and the

human agency are two side of a matter coming together through practice (Pérez, n.d.).

This implicates that structure is produced and reproduced by human agents, while in using

rules and resource in the structure; human agents reproduce these rules and resources

(Turner, 1986)

Structure is conceptualized as rule and resource (Turner, 1986). Rules are considered as

“formulas” in a social system (Giddens 1981, in Turner, 1986). It means that these rules,

both formal and informal, are widely known and used in daily activities like conversation.

The concept of resources is the material and the abilities of the agents (Giddens 1981, in

Turner, 1986). Ones getting hold of resource can mobilize power since power is the

outcome of occupying the materials and abilities (Giddens 1981, in Turner, 1986).

According to Giddens, both rules and resources are changeable as they can be constituted

into different forms, and they are subject to bind the social relations together. Hence, rules

and resource, or “structure” in other’s word, can be considered as “power”, “sanction”, and

“communication” among agents in social interaction (Giddens 1981, in Turner, 1986).

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According to Giddens (1981, in Turner, 1986), human agents, in a sense, are ones who can

supervise themselves and others. “Discursive” and “practical” are two level of this

reflection. The former represents the agents’ capability to “give reason” and “rationalize”

their choices, while the latter emphasis on the intangible knowledge that thy use to direct

themselves to the situation and to understand others’ behaviors (Giddens 1981, in Turner,

1986).

Rational choice theory

The theory of rational choice (Scott, 2000) offers explanations for the choices that

individuals do with one thing over another. The basics of it are that all societal phenomena

are driven by individuals’ choices and actions. This choices is founded in the rationality

that every human possess, that makes her take calculated decisions based on the value of

the best possible outcome versus the cost of this decision. Some theorists mean that the

individual always is maximizing and chooses the absolute best outcome, which can be

either economical like money or overtime or positive social encouragements like approval

or acceptance. Others mean that this might be accomplished during cooperation with others

as well. To explain why some individuals value things that is better for others than for

themselves theorists have come up with different suggestions. One is from Elster who says

that social norms are influencing the decisions made by individuals and is driven by shame

and guilt. These norms are something that becomes internalized and compulsive, but how

these norms have been created is not something that he has an explanation for since these

influences is not necessarily rational. Others mean that it becomes more rational for the

individual to follow the values made up by the society to seek for appreciation and

approval. The individual becomes socialized into make rational choices with

considerations to the societal values (Scott, 2000) When this theory is applied to our

research it is possible to see a combination of both these aspects since many of the choices

made is taken with both shame and guilt, but also the approval in mind. Even though the

theory is an individualistic one, it still offers an explanation for the parents’ choices for

their children - which are considered to be the choices of the whole household.

Methodology

In this research we have been using a hermeneutic approach to learn from the participants

and get a deeper understanding of the context they live in. According to the hermeneutic

approach, all people are always carrying on some pre-understanding and pre-judgment of

the world. A person can never be seen as an empty or clean sheet. This mean that all the

interpretations made in this research will be a result of our already acquired knowledge that

will influence our understanding of the research objects. The point with the hermeneutic

perspective in the interviews is to create a holistic understanding of all the parts and make

them connect to each other. Through different chains of explanations it is possible to

explore and explain how different socialization processes is founded and provides new

forms of motivation to the agents. Through this is it possible to explain how some mindsets

and actions leads to certain results (Gilje & Grimen, 2007, 171-198).

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With the goal of achieving a hermeneutic understanding in the research, we used

qualitative methods that enable the voices of the respondents to be heard. This is to let

them be more active agents in the way of explaining their own views on the society and the

culture. In accordance to this we used semi structured qualitative interviews. This means

that we had certain themes that our questions were made up from - which were adjusted to

the respondent and his/her answers. We also did a ranking to get a better understanding of

our respondents and the community, and to make them more involved in the discussion.

This meant that they had to explain and evaluate their own answers - which probably

taught both us and them some things.

Sampling

At first our target group was only youth in high school age, but because of the long

distances between the high school and Nam Dich and between the different families with

youth in high school age that is not in enrolled, we had to change. After the change we

were interested in opinions about high school education from as many different kinds of

groups as we could. This creation of target groups should only be seen as an attempt to

map as many different points of views as possible, but we will not make a discussion about

the differences.

The groups were:

- Youth enrolled in high school

- Youth between 15-19 that are not enrolled in high school. School children in secondary

school

- School-children in classes 7-9

- Parents to youth in high school age

- Parents with high school education

- Authorities from people's committee and the school.

To find these groups we had to use different methods. To find families with a youth in high

school age, or where the parents had high school education themselves, we usually went to

the village leader in one of the villages and asked for directions. If the village leader were

not at home or did not have the adequate information, we had to use the snowballing

method instead. Persons in these groups usually knew someone else in the same situation

who they could direct us to, which made it possible for us to find new respondents from the

right groups. In the case that we ran out of new suggestions we simply walked from house

to house to try new connections.

The authorities were quite easy to locate since most offices was visible and located in

places which we had easy access to. But just to locate them did not mean to get

information from. Contrary to our first visit in Nam Dich, during the second one it was not

easy to get information from the authorities. Except from the principal of the secondary

school, there was a hard time to get an interview with someone from the people's

committee or the school. They either did not want to talk us or was unavailable to meet us.

This lead to some sort of snowballing where we had to use all of our available contacts to

lead us to the right person.

After we had gotten satisfying answers from most of our targeted groups we tried a

different approach to see if we could find new inputs that could lead to a new perspective

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on our research issue. This meant that we went to different houses to talk to people outside

of our target groups and wanted their opinion about education in general. These interviews

were more of an open character than the semi-structured, to get more new information.

This helped us to have more understanding of the commune and the daily life there, and

helped us to get a more holistic view.

Problems we encountered

As mentioned earlier our second visit to Nam Dich was lined with difficulties attached to a

change in the attitudes towards us as researchers. The environment felt a bit more hostile

than it had previously. We had some difficulties to get interviews and locate certain

persons due to the suspicion against us; the persons we were looking for seemed always

"be out somewhere" or "not working today". We were more often asked if we had

permission to interview them. When we were doing the PRA-method with the 9th grade

the teacher actually gave us the wrong time for the meeting and had we not been there one

hour early, we would have missed the whole class. It was even affecting the enthusiasm of

the children we met, making them careful with their words around us. The children in the

secondary school were no longer chasing us across the school yard. But fortunately they

warmed up to us after a few days.

Semi-structured interviews

This kind of interview changes the atmosphere and makes it more like a conversation,

where the respondent are able to freely elaborate the answers and the interviewer can ask

follow up-questions at the spot. This has a grate advantage over for example structured

interviews and surveys since it is possible to have more personal answers with a bigger

variety in the answers. And the biggest advantage towards surveys in particular is that is

possible to explain the questions a little bit to avoid confusion. Otherwise there might be

some misinterpretations that affect the result. The semi-structured interview is not as open

as an unstructured interview and our pre-made interview guide contained some themes that

our questions were formed around. This made us keep the focus on the topic and ask

relevant questions for our aim, but still allowed us to change them to fit with the

respondent. The majority of our information was gathered through this method and it was

usually conducted with one person at a time, but sometimes it was bigger groups that could

consist of the whole family for example. In the cases that we were interested in the

opinions of a youth that was not allowed to go to high school we had to come up with ways

to separate him/her from the rest of the family so that we could talk more freely. It was not

popular amongst the young to talk about their desire to attend high school in front of the

parents. A typical interview started with some small talk to make the conversation feel

more personal and relaxed, to let the respondent/s feel safe. Even though we always started

off with reassuring the person that it was voluntary and anonymous and only to be used as

a part of our education, there could be a tension about the interview that could affect the

answers and make them short and un-detailed. In creating an open and safe environment it

was easier to get the respondents to open up and diminish the influence our presence as

researchers might have on the answers.

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Unstructured interviews

It is a form of interview whit out any restriction or direction in the conversational topics.

This allows the respondent to lead the interview and explain things that he/she sees

important. This method was used during the last days of our visit in Nam Dich when we

already had gathered a lot of information from our targeted groups and instead wanted to

see if we could receive new and unexpected information from other sources. This was also

a way to explore more parts of the society and understand the specific context that our

respondents are living in.

Why we didn't use other methods

Since our study was to explore and try to gain a hermeneutic understanding of the subjects

we had to use qualitative research methods. That means that the quantitative methods

survey and study statistics could not be used. And since we had specific themes that we

wanted to explore we could not use structured interviews since it would not allow the

persons to elaborate freely. The unstructured interviews did we use to some extent, but it

was not used in the main bulk of our research. How we did it our study consisted of a total

of 13 days in Nam Dich commune. Our first visit was conducted during four days and had

the purpose of collecting information that would be the foundation of the rest of our

research. After altering our research-questions a little bit during a one- week intermezzo in

the town of Vinh Quang, we went back to Nam Dich to start with the semi structured

interviews with our target groups. With the base in village 2 we went to villages in the

whole commune to gather information. After this the analyzing of the information was

made in Hanoi.

Our presence

One thing to always remember during interviews is the influence the researchers might

have on the respondents. In our case our gender might actually have been an advantage

since it made other women feel safe to talk to us. Some didn't dare to talk about gender-

inequality in the presence of men, but as soon as we were alone with a woman she was

more talkative.

Our presence might also have had disadvantages too. It might first of all make the

respondents answer things that they think we want to hear. That means altering some

things so that it would look good in our eyes. In some cases it seems like our educational

level was affecting the respondents. In interviews where the respondents had very little

education they often seemed to feel inferior to us in questions about education and were

afraid that they would say something that made them look uneducated or even unintelligent

to us- which they of course never did.

Concerning the gender part of our research our gender as women might have encouraged

other women to talk to us about it, but it might have had another influence on men. This

might have influenced the answers in two different directions; either the man felt

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uncomfortable to talk about oppression towards women - since it is our own gender that is

affected or they didn't want to step on any toes. Or they instead wanted to emphasize on

how they see gender inequality as something really unfair to half of the population. This

might have influenced the answers we got and maybe made them different from the

answers that two male researchers would have gotten. Also our background might have

had an influence on the respondents since one of us is a westerner and the other is from the

lowlands and even the capital. That is dependent on how he/she looks at Vietnam and its

history.

Last but not least might our host address had an influence on the interviews, in two ways.

With the system of persuasion to raise the enrollment rate in high school, the mention of

our host might have in some occasions made it look like we were sent by the village leader

to try to persuade the youths to start with high school. This made some of the families to

change their answers so that it would look like they would send their children to school,

just to make sure that we would leave happy and not make the village leader and the

teachers to come to the family again and nag at them. The youth themselves from these

families often told another story than the parents - were it was made clear that their parents

actually would not send them to high school. In other cases the mention of our host could

actually make some interviewees think that we had some permission of the authorities to

ask them questions. This was only discovered in discussion with other students who had

had more trouble than us of getting interviews with for example teachers - and they were

often asked if they had permission from the authorities to make these interviews. When our

host was mentioned we were never asked about any permission.

The influence of the other students

There is no denying that there is some change in the circumstances when there is such a

big group of students gathering in such a small commune like Nam Dich to conduct

research. The behavior of some students was reflected in the view of the others as well.

Also the number of groups that were interested in questions about education had an effect

on the respondents. In one case we were asking the vice principal of the secondary school

for some statistics, only to be told that another group just had been there for the same

information and she asked why we simply didn't share the information with each other -

which was not even possible at the moment. The same thing happened when we were

doing the ranking with the 8th grade. Other classes had previously been involved in the

same activity with other researchers. This made the students in the secondary school to

compare our groups and the difference between our questions. This also makes it harder to

have a "hidden agenda" with the questions since they might already be expecting it from

us.

Result analysis

Why education is important

This part is divided into 2 main parts: Education in general and High school education in

particular.

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Education in general

Generally, the literacy side of education is mentioned the most. All of the respondents said

that the ability to read and write as well as communicate with other people was what

important when having education. This even comes first in the ranking game with 14 girls

in secondary school

High school education

Out of 23 informants and respondents, only one of them said high school education is not

matter. The reason for saying that is the children will eventually go back to farm work

anyway. This saying can be explained in the rational choice theories. The respondent

thinks that it is not worth all the money for attending high school as it does not bring any

advantage for the farm

The rest of the interviewees agree on the significant of high school education. The parents

and students’ perspective focus more on the micro level. With high school education, more

knowledge gained means more chance to get a job and to be out of the poverty. Even if the

children cannot find a work after the graduation from university, at least, they can practice

their knowledge on the farm work. All of the parents going to high school see high school

education as mandatory. Parents, who did not attend high school, seem to be considerate of

the children’s feeling as most of them said that the least thing they could do to give their

children higher education, so the children did not feel regret latter. High school education

is also seen as one way to achieve ones’ dream since only when the children complete high

school, can they go for higher education with more majors to choose. Independence is

another thing coming with high school education. The more knowledge the children gain,

the wiser they get. This means the children with higher education are more likely to realize

the risk as they know more, and have more access to information.

The perspective from the authorities or the teachers is more at the macro level as their

concerns relate more to the development of the society. Their interests lie in the economic

development for the community, which in return bring benefit for everyone. The motto for

the primary and lower secondary school is “education is the way to wealth”.

The persuasion system

Even though primary and lower secondary schools are universal and compulsory, there is

no statement about the sanction for drop-outs in the law. However, Nam Dich authorities

impose sanction on the drop-outs’ families. The families of the drop out might be fined as

high as 1,000,000 vnd.

The high school level does not have the sanction. This maybe due to the fact that the high

school has yet to be at the universal level and if one wants to go to high school, they have

to meet a certain requirement, and it depends on their capabilities. So, if one does not go to

high school, the teachers, the hamlet leader can come to persuade, and provide the support

for the families.

This act of persuasion also seems to go along with the rational choice theory as the

authorities seem to see high school education as worth for investment as they can get the

educational return for the development of the society

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The way people rationalize their answer

During the field study we discovered different reasons why youths do not go to high

school. This section will first reflect the opinions that were raised by the respondents and

every reason will then be applied with the rational choice theory and the duality of the

structure.

Early marriage

The practice of early marriage is a custom that is impeding the level of education in some

families, more so for the girls since the tradition is that the wife is younger than the

husband. If a girl is married at a young age, there is a risk that hers or the husband's family

doesn't allow her to continue her education to high school level. This might be changing,

according to some, since the implementation of the law that states that girls under 18 and

boys under 20 years of age cannot get married. Following that law no one should have

marriage as a reason not to go to high school, since marriage is allowed first after high

school-age. But this practice seems to still be happening, though in another way. Today it

is instead the custom of having an early engagement that hinders the girls from attending

high school. Parents of the soon-to-be-husband and wife are sometimes afraid that the

youths will fall in love with someone else when they are in school. To prevent this, they

make an engagement between the individuals - which often leads to a situation where the

girl is forbidden to continue to high school. In these cases it is possible to see how people

always find a way to get around the rules and how power creates resistance. This might

also be seen as an example of the unequal workload that seems to be the case in many of

the households. The women that has been observed and questioned during the research has

had the biggest role in taking care of the households and the fields, which offers an

explanation why there is such a strong commitment for the structure to be unchanged. It

seems like the households would experience a lot more hardship if the women would

educate themselves and take place in the formal labor market.

A high level of education and marriage

Some of the social norms are also the thinking that girls do not need a high level of

education. It is seen as a waste of both time and resources. A well educated girl is frowned

upon and her knowledge can affect her chances of getting married. There is also a mindset

of some parents that since their daughters will be part of another family after she is married

the expected positive outcomes from her education will benefit another family which

makes it an unnecessary investment for them. Here it is simply deemed that for the family

the best outcomes will be that the girl is at home and work at the farm. In these cases the

individual's rights and advantages is secondary to that of the family.

Poverty

The poverty rate of Nam Dich commune is, according to the principal of secondary school,

quite high, about 40%, and for some it affects the possibility to go to high school.

Sometimes the reasons mentioned below is manifested as the same for all of the children in

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2015-03-18

the family, sometimes it is different for different siblings (the oldest versus the youngest)

and sometimes it is different between the genders in the same family.

Cannot afford school-related expenses

The first aspect of how poverty might affect education is the inability to pay for the costs.

It is costly to attend school with the intuition fee and the school material, the rent if the

student stays in the town or the fuel for the travels back and fort between the school and

the home. In an attempt to improve the education rate there is a support system that

children to farmers almost always are entitled to. It is comprised of approximately 15 kg

rice and 575 000 Dong per month for the student and is available during the nine months a

year that the students are in school. To some families this was enough to enable them to

send their children to high school, but several of the people from poorer homes stated that

this is not enough for their household. They do not have the financial means to be able to

send their child - regardless of how they perceive the importance of education. In the cases

where the household is in such poverty there doesn’t seem to be much of a choice really

which makes the family prioritize the survival of its family members first.

Cannot afford a decline in the workforce

The second reason, which in various degrees is connected with the first, is that poverty

might affect the education level in some cases where the family cannot manage the farming

without all the family members present. It can also manifest itself in cases where the youth

has to work elsewhere to contribute to the family economy. This means that the farm work

requires a certain amount of laborers to thrive, more so if the soil is of bad quality as the

poorest households often have. If one of the children (thus the free labor) is leaving it

means that the others must work harder or the loss in labor must be replaced somehow. To

some of the families this is not an alternative since they do not have the means to do this.

For the best of the family the youth has to be at home. Even though some of these families

says that they see education as essential for the family and the community, it is hard to tell

if it is something that they are actually considering or if it is an easy way out to blame the

labor (or the economic deficit for that matter). But since this study if about how themselves

rationalize different decisions it is no point in questioning if they really are that poor as

they say. One student in the 9th grade said something that is worth contemplating: "You

have to see it from the parent’s perspective too; they have to think about the whole family".

That means that it is hard to expect change over the night and the parents are doing the best

they can with the few resources they have.

Lacking study-tradition

In some of the poorer villages, where the high school enrollment rate is low, the persons

we interviewed stated that they do not have a tradition of studying and therefore their

children are not expected to continue. "Here we do not study at high school" was

something that was explained to us. This shows on a discouraging structure that from each

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generation to the next diminish the value of education and thus affecting the rationality of

the youth to follow the preferences that he/she has been taught. To the coming generations

in these families it might be needed for some strong actions from the government, for

example, to provide with enough benefits in changing the way of thinking about higher

education that the structure and value-system are changed.

Lack of motivation

Sometimes, a youth is not allowed to go to high school because he or she is considered

lazy. This might be a decision made by the parents if they suspect that their child will drop-

out and thereby throw away their investment. In other cases it is instead the study-

motivation that is lacking for the student, thus making them feel reluctant to continue their

education. This was something that was more often connected to the boys in the families

we interviewed. It was also something that the poorer families said as something to be

considered. This might be explained with the fact that the high costs for the high school is

a higher portion of the families’ incomes - which makes it a bigger investment. The fact

that the families seems to question the boys study ability more than the girls might be

explained by the norm that girls are more dedicated to the work in school or it could also

be related to the practice of early engagement in the families. That means that it cannot be

proved that the girls have more motivation for school than boys - the unmotivated girls

might already have been taken out of the calculation for high school enrollment.

The labor market

In some cases the concern has been lifted that it does not matter if one has a good

education or not since they cannot get any good jobs in the village anyway. The meaning

of this is that the labor market in Nam Dich cannot provide adequate work for enough

people, which mean that some of them have to work with the same kind of jobs as non-

educated individuals. In other cases a high education is considered a waste, especially for

girls. Here there was the argument that the youth is more needed in the household where he

or she will probably stay for the rest of his/her life, where a higher education is deemed

unnecessary. This is quite a typical example of when the rational choice is made up from

the calculated costs versus the benefits, and it is considered that the benefits the education

might lead to - the job - is not good enough to justify the costs. This also shows on a belief

that education in itself is not a good enough benefit for the youth - which might be a result

from the socially established values through the socialization process in that family/village.

Work-related corruption

In some cases there is a reluctance to get an education for some of the professions that are

considered stable because of the corruption in the public sector. To be able to work as a

teacher, for example, a person might have to pay a large amount of money to even be

employed. This amount of money is sometimes so high that the family cannot afford it

without taking loans.

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The remote location of the high school

When a youth from Nam Dich wants to study at the high school, he/she has to travel to

Vinh Quang where the high school is located. Mostly the students decide to stay in the

town and just come home to their families during the weekends or the holidays. The

distance between home and school is a factor that many families have to take into account.

Not only is there the question of money which has already been discussed - but is also

comes with certain risks concerning the safety: First of all is the risk during the travels

back and forth between the home visits. The road is quite dangerous since it is very narrow

with many sharp turns on the steep mountainside. The risk of being in a fatal accident is

always imminent.

Secondly there are the risks that are connected with being a youth, at such a young age,

living away from the parents in another city. He/she is exposed to risks of being injured

somehow in the new environment, to be hurt by other people - for example robbed, beaten

or in some way deceived. The girls are considered to be more exposed than the boys to

these risks since they also have the risk of being raped, sexually abused or lured into

trafficking. Without the ability to supervise their children, the parents feel insecurity about

their children’s ability to study. They fear that they will do other things than studying, and

not taking care of themselves. Except for the external effect, some parents are also afraid

that the youth will behave badly and lose his/her manners - or maybe pick up some bad

habits from others. This type of answers is essentially about the parent's the lack of control

over the child's immediate environment. This is probably the case for many parents in

different countries and cultures, but it must also be seen in the light of the current housing

system that most families in Nam Dich is having. This system is built on the male lineage

and means that a woman after marriage usually moves to the husband’s house to take care

of the farm and the parents-in law. The eldest son is the one who usually is staying in his

parents home to take over the life there. This means that it is almost always 2-4 generations

living in one home, and the traditions have been like that for a long time. So when a youth

is out of the house and living elsewhere, it might be considered something that is against

the customs and something unnatural. The risks might not be the only reason, but

sometimes it is deemed so high that it is one of the accumulated reasons that make a family

(or the individual) to decide that the possible positive outcome is not worth enough to

outweigh the possible negative outcomes.

Conclusion:

Restricted time as well as limited number of respondents may affect the result of this study

as it is quite hard to generalize the information. Nevertheless, we did have basic

understandings about the obstacle preventing students from attending high school in Nam

Dich people’s opinion, and how the difference between boys and girls remains.

Even though almost all of the participants said high school education was important, not all

of them let their children attend high school. The reasons behind can be vary from the lack

of motivation, the fear of risk toward their children, the ability of the children and so on.

However, the poverty, the social norms and the labor market seem to be the three most

significant challenges.

The poverty, or in other words the economic situation of the household, is the reason that

was most common as a hindrance to high school enrollment. Even though they stated that

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2015-03-18

high school education is essential for the economic of the household in the long run, they

still do not let their children attend high school. This is due to the fact that for them, the

cost for high school education is considered higher than what the returns should be. In their

rationalization, if they invest in education, they expect a guaranteed high return to the

household’s economy. This relation is found in the labor market factor as well. Suppose

that the household invest in the high school education and even the university, there is no

guarantee to the economic return of the investment as they lack money, which decreases

the possibility of getting a job. “No money, no job” seems to be the dominant mindset of

people there. This leads to a vicious cycle, poverty affects higher education, lack of

education in return make the process of poverty eradication slow down or stop.

The social norms are something that is influencing the whole society. This is establishing

certain values that are reproducing themselves through the actions of the agents. Some of

these norms are about the education and how its importance is perceived and how much of

the households’ income it is really worth.

Many of these norms are about gender differences and what is appropriate behavior for

boys and girls respectively. This point to a tendency to value boys' education higher than

girls', which is shown in both the enrollment rates as well as the age of marriage between

the genders. Girls are considered to be in the household, where they constitute the biggest

contributor to the workload of the farm. This structural duality that Giddens talk about

(Giddens 1981, in Turner 1986) is clearly visible in our findings on several occurrences.

First of all it is possible to see how the structure is made up of customs and traditions that

states some values that is affecting the individuals and their choices. "In this family we

don't study" is a citation that shows the continuing practices that for each generation’s

choice of not study is reproduced. A comparison between different families shows how the

individual agents are responsible for the reproduction of the structure. There were cases

with families where the current young generation still was not allowed to go to high

school, but every youth we talked to express a desire to study more. When asked if they

think that they would send their future child to high school - they always said yes. This

shows that there is change to come. The agent is in this stage not strong enough to change

the structure, but since the mindset is already changed - the future actions that he/she will

take will also alter the structure he/she is living in. Through our research it seems like the

structure is slowly changing with each generation and the question is how it will look like

ten years from now.

Recommendation

With the understandings coming along with this research, below are some of our

recommendations. As time and our understanding of Nam Dich context are limited, these

suggestions might or might not be helpful. This is based on our findings only.

Education has to be more easily accessed. There must be a better support system that

allows even the poorest in a society to be able to attend school – without the destruction of

their family. This means: better economic help, safer roads to school (and maybe more

schools on a closer distance)

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The education itself has to be of good quality and promote gender equality through all of

the teachings done. This also means that the teachers and school staff has to implement

gender equality amongst themselves and act as role models for the students.

Education and gender equality has to be promoted to all of the households through

village/commune meetings, so people will have more understanding about the importance

of education for both genders, especially for women. With a bigger understanding, they

may change their minds piece by piece, and let their children to have higher education.

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2015-03-18

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