[Vnbiz] Rural Development Strategy
Tran Dinh Hoanh
tdhoanh at gmail.com
Wed Jul 23 18:56:46 PDT 2008
Dear CACC,
Now that we have gone through dynamics, vision, strategy with "building smart
young workers" as its main thrust, which in practical terms means building
high schools and two-year colleges throughout the countryside.
In this message, we will consider the question "How to build high schools
and colleges throughout the countryside?" This question is actually a part
of the strategy—the execution of strategy.
(Please note that: There are other things in the strategy that are not the
main thrust but also important for rural development, such as land law
reform, agriculture extension services, farmer coops, food processing
industry,
etc. We will talk about these as we complete the strategy. But for now,
to keep our mind focused, we should just talk about the main thrust).
There are three elements involved in building schools: education policy,
people mobilization, funding.
1. *The first element to talk about when building a school is
education policy*, specifically the government policy concerning school
ownership and management.
The government needs to think about liberating education, allowing education
to grow and prosper and not choking up education by unnecessary regulations.
Everything boils down to one question: "How easy is it to build and operate
a college in Vietnam?"
Chi Phuong Nga said, "Decentralization should be seen strongly in education
sector to make it demand driven not giving what they have as it is now to
make a room for students to bring up their own talent and ability. Each
region has different demand. At national level a standard framework is
necessary. US education system can be a model for learning." This short
statement is very good and contains a lot of insight.
· First, we have "decentralization." It means the central
government, i.e. MOET, should not be so obsessed about controlling
everything. Give the locals a big role in taking care of their own
education.
I would go further to say, "Let the people take care of their own
education." That means, we need to make it very easy for private citizens
to open private colleges. One of the ways to help colleges grow healthily
is to give colleges a "non-profit" status. A non-profit (or not-for-profit)
organization is what we normally call an NGO (non-government organization).
The main difference between an NGO and a business (a for-profit
organization) is that business has to pay income tax on its profit. NGO
doesn't have to pay income tax on its profit (but it does pay salaries to
its employees like a business and the employees do pay taxes on their
salaries). (BTW, the legal and financial status of NGO s in Vietnam—church,
temple, hospital, community service agencies, etc. is still very unclear
and undeveloped).
The truth is that not so many private citizens want to open colleges,
because it is hard to maintain a college financially. The other route is
public or semi-public colleges. Here we can have a cooperation model
between the local and the central, between government and private
citizens—the local government can donate the land, the central government
(or private investor for semi-public school) takes care of other things.
· Second, we have "demand driven." It means education should be
driven by the demand of the economy, of the job market, of the local
history, geography, culture and economy, of the wishes of the students, and
not by the grand ideas of some education officials in Hanoi. In practical
terms, it means each school should be allowed to have its own curriculum. Each
school should be free to design its own *curriculum*, like each restaurant
has its own menu. Why should the government want every restaurant to have
the same menu?
Not only the content of the curriculum, but also *the timing structure of
the courses*. Ex: I would encourage every school to switch to "credit"
system, to allow students the flexibility to choose what they want to learn,
at the time they want to learn, and finish the entire curriculum in their
own time.
The school should also be free to select *its own teaching staff*, with its
own selection criteria. Ex: If I teach a course in mango planting, I would
invite some veteran mango farmers (who probably have 5th grade education) to
be my "teaching assistants" in the college. Should anyone have any problem
with that?
The school should also be *free to select its own students*. If a college
accepts any student who has finish high school and doesn't require an
entrance exam, what is wrong with that? (New schools need to do that to
survive financially). If a college graduates only idiots, what is wrong
with that? There are restaurants with lousy food, what's wrong with that. Bad
restaurants will be beaten to bankruptcy by the market. Same thing with
school, bad schools will eventually die out.
Of course, the central government should provide guidance. But guidance
means guidance; it doesn't mean arm-twisting. Guidance may best come in
the form of "*certification." *MOET may have a list of "qualifications for
certification." Schools that meet this list will be "certified" by MOET as
meeting the minimum standards of education quality. Schools that fail the
list will not be certified. Certification is very good to give school
guidance and inform the public of school quality, while not encroaching on
the school's and the student's freedom. Also, the school that doesn't meet
certification may lose some funding from the central government. There are
many ways to structure certification to give it more persuasive power.
· One major thing in education policy I need to add here is that
religious organizations should be allowed to open their own schools. Many
top schools of the world, including Harvard and Yale, were founded by
religious organizations. Before 1975 each major religion had one or more
university in the South and they were among the best universities in the
South. For a short time, I attended Da Lat University (Catholic) for
sciences, physics and chemistry and Van Hanh University (Buddhist) for
German. I was very impressed with both of them. Due to obsolete political
thinking, Vietnam still keeps religious organizations from operating
schools. This is like a poor man who is starving and has a piece of jade in
his pocket, but he doesn't know that he can just sell the jade and eat all
he wants for a long time.
Education is the most important thing to move the country forward,
unfortunately it is the most backward field as far as policy is concerned.
We need a revolution in education thinking. Not just new ideas or reforms,
but revolution in thinking. We need to liberate our mind, to free our
thinking, to take our thoughts out of the prison in our own mind.
Here is my suggestion: Do not politicize education. Education is
hundred-year project; politics is, the most, a 10-year project (in the US,
it is 4-year project). We need to be able to look deeply into the future,
for 50 years or 100 years.
2. *The second element in building schools is people
mobilization*. People
mobilization means getting everyone involved, specially the local people. This
element is just common sense PR. The more people are interested and
involved in a project, the more the project will be successful.
The way the International Support Group is working with MARD to gain
international support, getting ideas from international consultants and
vnbiz members, is a very good example of people mobilization.
At the government level, obviously MARD will have to work with many
ministries, and the other ministries have to be convinced that rural
development is not just the responsibility of one ministry, and that they
are a major part of rural development.
The international community (UNDP, World Bank, ADB, INGOs) should be invited
to chip in ideas during planning and execution.
Vietnamese citizens should be invited to be involved in planning through the
media.
I think eventually MARD may want to form a steering committee on rural
development. This committee should also have people outside the government.
I would recommend that the government invites a couple of NGO reps, teachers
and religious leaders into the steering committee.
MARD needs to be conscious that what it does at the central level will be
copied by local authorities at the local level. So the more creative MARD
can demonstrate, the more creative local authorities will be. As any major
battle, the people strategy is simple: "Mobilize everyone."
*3. ** The third element in building schools is funding. * It is
difficult to talk about funding in the abstract. Each location has its own
conditions that may require its own financial structure. But here we can
touch upon some general principles about public colleges (Private colleges
and semi-public colleges will have private funding which will depend largely
on private arrangements).**
* *
· We will assume that local colleges will not be able to cover their
cost by students' tuitions and, therefore, will need some public funding.**
**
· The most fundamental principle is that the local area should carry
as much of the financial burden as it can. The central government will
have to chip in something, but the local area should be the "owner" of its
college and therefore should carry the major part of the burden. (And in
the mobilization task, the local authorities should be smart enough to make
local citizens feel that it is THEIR college and not just a college thrown
there by someone in Hanoi).**
* *
* *
· In the local taxation scheme, a part of the tax collection should
be set part for education.**
**
· The initial funding to build the colleges may come from
international (World Bank & ADB) loans for education and rural development.
The re-payment for the loans (usually installments spread out over many
years) may be carried by the locals themselves. **
* *
* *
· The annual operating budget may be covered by students tuitions,
local taxes set aside for education, and central government's funding.**
* *
· Be creative in fund raising to gain private donations from local
citizens, local businesses, local organizations (such as churches and
temples). To encourage private donations, (1) accounting should be kept
well and disclosed publicly, with a reputable accounting firm as auditor and
(2) donations should be physically evidenced in the school ground (ex: With
some amount of donation, the donor can "sponsor" a class room—i.e., paying
for the cost of building that classroom--has the right to give that class
room a name (i.e. Pho`ng "Vie^.t Tie^'n') and has a plaque in the class
wall recognizing its contribution; a smaller amount will be recognized for a
smaller thing. There are many ways to display the donors' names. The
display serves to (1) convince people that their contribution has been
accounted for properly and (2) stimulate others to contribute—physical
evidence always has strong persuasive power. My point here is that we need
to be creative in fund raising to bring private contribution into college
life. Schools can always hire fund raising companies to help them raise
fund.**
* *
* *
· And don't forget the Viet Kieu population—they can be teachers,
even distant over the Internet, or they can donate money, especially for a
school in their home area. But the school has to show its ability to have a
clean and efficient management in order to convince the Viet Kieu to be
involved.**
The key ties all the above points together is this: "Be creative get
EVERYONE involved."
In the next message , I will start talking about other things in rural
development, other than schools.
Have a great day!
Hoanh
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tran Dinh Hoanh <tdhoanh at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 5:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Vnbiz] Rural Development Strategy
To: vnbiz at vietlinks.net
Dear chi Nga & CACC,
Thank you for the kich ban posting, chi Nga. Very informative and helpful.
Let me just doing my thinking out loud here, to move the process forward and
also to share with our brothers/sisters my thinking process in this huge
issue of rural development (keeping in mind the kich ban that chi Nga has
just posted).
First, we need to look at the dynamics of the country's economy and the
rural areas. The dynamics will show us the general natural direction that
the the rural economy is going. (This is the direction that the economy is
going and will continue to go, even if we do nothing).
Second, we need to form a vision of the rural future that fits in the
general natural direction.
Third, we need a strategy to make the vision a reality. The strategy has to
have one (or maximum three) focuses (or locomotives) as the main thrust.
Every thing else in the strategy is to support, or to gain benefits, from
this main thrust.
1. Dynamics:
* The world may be facing increasing food demand and higher food prices in
the next several decades, due to (1) increase world population, (2) increase
in food quality demand (ie. more consumption of meet as an economhy
develops) and (3) the use of food for non-food purposes (such
as using corn to produce biofuel). That means, if we don't have another
Green Revolution, we will see more pressure to get more land for
agriculture.
* The global integration will bring people together. The gap between
people will not be in spatial distance but in knowledge. To close the gap
(i.e., to be less poorer than the other guys) we need to close the knowledge
gap.
* Many young people are leaving and will continue leave the
countryside oin search of a better life in the cities. Many major cities
will become megacities.
* Tremendous urbanization pressures will be placed on cities to provide
infrastructure, housing, schools, jobs and security (i.e. crime fighting and
prevention). Many people in the city have no family or community
support; social service organizations will have to provide support
services.
* Many farmers will sell their land because (1) they don't have children
to work the land--most children will leave for the city, and (2) the
land can't provide enough income to live on.
* Economy of scale will demand that individual farming lots increase in
size and mechanized. So, whoever has enough money will try to by farming
land from his neighbors to create larger lots. The land merging trend may
continue as long as 50 years. If there is stimulus to push up this process,
it will take at least 25 years.
* Many farmers will have to do works other than merely working their land.
* As life pressure in cities become too much and too expensive, and
telecommunications (phone, Internet...) simplifies global communications,
there will be a reversal trend, to go out into the countryside to build
offices, factories, residential communities, recreational facilities, etc.
It means, there will be demand for small towns to pop up all over the
countryside.
* Vietnam population, both in the cities and in the countryside, is very
young and very active. This is a great resource for national development.
2. Vision:
As we can see the dynamics of the future and the general natural direction
the future is going, we simply go along with that direction and make the
best picture for ourselves in that direction. So, we want the countryside
dotted with many small town centers--clusters of government and private
offices, schools, churches, temples, restaurants, shops, movie theatres,
libraries, hitech centers. Outside the town centers, there will be
farms--rice fields, vegetable fields, chicken farms, pig farms, agriculture
related factories (for dry foods and canned foods, etc). Occasionally,
there will be recreational facilities for city dwellers, or hitech centers
for huge companies.
Basically, this is a very simple and realistic vision: The countryside is
actually a series of small towns with a nucleus in the middle and fields
around it. These small towns will have almost everything a major city has,
but with much less intensity, much more gentleness and much more quietness.
There will still be some differences in the countryside towns and major
cities--but the differences are more in degree than in substance: Small
towns have everything the major cities have, including knowledge and
opportunities, but with less intensity.
3. Strategy: In forming the strategy, I ask: "What is the most
important thing we must have to make everything happen?" Of course, we are
talking about many things at the same time--infrastructures, money and
investment, people, agriculture extension services, law and order,
governance, etc. But, assuming realistically that we don't have a beautiful
beach or a gold mine, what do we consider as the most important thing--if we
have it we may have everything else, if we don't have it we may not have
anything else--that we may rely on as the main thrust of our strategy? My
answer is "Young and smart workers." If we have young and smart workers in
an area (and other things are so-so), we can attract outside business to
come in and stimulate inside business to be born, to act as the core of the
local economy.
Of course, a minimum level of infrastructure is essential. But no one will
invest money for infrastructure in an area that they can't find workers for
their business. However, if there are good workers, business will be
attracted and business will be willing to spend money to build
infrastructure. In practice, some minimum level of infrastructure has to be
in place for everything else to happen. Yes, we know that. But for
strategic thinking purposes, i.e., what is the most important element of the
strategy, I would say "building young and smart workers."
"Building smart young workers" is the thrust of our rural
development strategy.
How do we build young and smart workers?
We build schools for them, right where their homes are. One of the major
problems in the countryside is the lack of high schools and two-year
colleges. (a) Only a few families can afford to send their children to city
for colleges, which costs 3 or 4 times the local college cost, which is a
big waste for the national economy. (b) The majority of families cannot
send children to cities for colleges and these kids will simply drop stop
schooling; the brainpower lost, which is the efficiency cost for the
national economy, is tremendous. (c) The kids who have to stop schooling
will move to the city to find jobs. Without enough knowledge for
high-skilled jobs and a social support system around them, these kids can
get lost easily in the city and many will become a part of the city social
issues, including city crimes. This is another major cost to the national
efficiency. To avoid these (a) (b) (c) costs, and to build smart young
workers for the rural area, we must invest in a series of high schools and
colleges throughout the countryside.
The schools are a good reason for the government to build supporting
infrastructure around them--roads, electricity, water, Internet. The
colleges will act as the *"knowledge centers"* for the countryside--Students
are the best people to spread knowledge back to their parents; the schools
can also house offices of government agriculture extension services; the
schools are the place for NGOs to meet; the schools are the research center,
which businesses can rely on, for information about the area, its people and
its economy; the schools can have their own Internet servers that may
provide some Internet services for local governments and businesses.
These local colleges should rely intensely on *local people* and *local
knowledge* to build their strength. All the local people with any capacity
to contribute to the schools should be encouraged to help--monetary
contribution, teaching, researching. Government officials and NGO workers
in the area may be recruited into the teaching staff, if not full time then
as adjunct professors. Local researchers should be hired to research and
teach on local issues--researchers should be hired to write an intensive
research on the local history, its people, its culture, its foods, its
interesting stories and rumors, etc. This local knowledge should be a
subject in the school's curriculum. The result of these researches can be
published in books and used in structuring cultural tours (i.e. turning the
local area into a cultural tourist attraction.
Internet should be relied on intensively to build the local schools--for
teaching professionals in the cities to do long-distance teaching, for
students to do research without the need for expensive libraries, for the
community to rely on as the major hub on the Web.
In the next message I will talk how we may start building schools in the
countryside?
Have a great day!
Hoanh
____________
On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 6:29 AM, Nguyen Thi Phuong Nga <
ntpnga2001 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
> Dear CACC,
>
> This is the most recent exercise done by a group of local experts and
> consultants and international ones assisted by WB in support to the MARD
> formulation of the rural development strategy: Scenarios for Rural
> Development in Vietnam up to 2020 - a very first draft one.
>
> Your comments are highly appreciated.
>
>
>
> Nguyen Thi Phuong Nga
> Manager
>
> International Support Group - ISG Secretariat
> Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD)
> 10 - 12 Nguyen Cong Hoan , Hanoi
>
> E-mail: ntpnga2001 at yahoo.com
> Website: www.isgmard.org.vn
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> To subscribe/unsubscribe, please contact admins at
> vnbizadmin at vietlinks.net
> Info at http://mail.saigon.com/mailman/listinfo/vnbiz
> Archive at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vnbiz/
> or http://groups-beta.google.com/group/VNBIZforum/
> or http://mail.saigon.com/pipermail/vnbiz
>
--
Tran Dinh Hoanh, Esq., LLB, JD
Washington DC
--
Tran Dinh Hoanh, Esq., LLB, JD
Washington DC
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.saigon.com/pipermail/vnbiz/attachments/20080723/e95393ff/attachment.html
More information about the Vnbiz
mailing list