Currently, there are nearly 1.7 million illiterate people nationwide. Hanoi City, which encompasses former Ha Tay Province and parts of neighbouring Vinh Phuc and Hoa Binh provinces, has about 235,000 residents who are unable to read, followed by HCM City with 90,000 people and Long An with 60,000.

According to the report, the highest illiteracy rates are recorded among people over 36 years old residing in northern mountainous provinces, Tay Nguyen (the Central Highlands) and the Cuu Long (Mekong) river delta.

More attention needed
Aware of the weakness of an ignorant nation, the Government has given top priority to the fight against illiteracy, helping the country to achieve a literacy rate of 92 percent. Yet, the struggle is still going on.

Vice President of the Vietnam Learning Encouragement Association Tran Xuan Nhi said that efforts to maintain a high literacy rate among people 15-35 years old in the plains and people 15-25 years old in remote mountainous areas are still slow going.

“The actual number of illiterate people there is much higher than expected,” he says.

The Ministry of Education and Training, in collaboration with cities and provinces, has held pro-literacy classes since 1992, but the outcome is far from satisfactory.

“The rate of illiteracy remains high despite some progress,” Deputy Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Vinh Hien admitted at a workshop last month, which reviewed the three-year implementation of a project to build an educated society and develop community learning centers.

He said the country still has 144,459 illiterate people aged between 15 and 25. The figure is nearly 250,000 among people 25-35 years old.

According to UNESCO’s National Committee General Secretary Pham Sanh Chau, only 77 percent of ethnic minority people can read and write, about 15 percent lower than the rest of the population.

“This is an alarming situation,” he says.

Improving literacy among at-risk groups is seen as an important way to increase knowledge about epidemics and contagious diseases like HIV and malaria.

University education will provide a foundation for people to gain a good knowledge of science and technology, which will help to increase productivity for the benefit of the country.

The Government should assist people in remote and mountainous areas access learning tools, said Nhi.

“They are a powerful labour force producing vital materials for society,” he added.

A major hurdle on the road to combating illiteracy is that the Government’s education budget is only enough to provide schooling for 20-25 million people, a third of the population, Nhi pointed out.

The country’s remaining population, nearly 60 million people, has not been given proper resources and opportunities to obtain an adequate education, he said.

To tackle the problem, he recently asked the Government to use 3 percent of the annual education budget to combat illiteracy and provide further education at community learning centers.

Learning society
Knowledge is a commodity that will enrich the whole country.

The Government has taken this tenet as a guideline and established community learning centers so that adults, especially farmers in rural areas and labourers in major cities, can receive further education and training.

More than 9,000 centres have been established over the last three years to promote literacy and improve public knowledge of agriculture, forestry, fishery and law.

The aim of these centers is to provide an equal learning opportunity for all people in society, but it is not easy to implement this idea.

According to the Learning Encouragement Association, only 30 percent of community learning centers is operating effectively and only 24 out of Vietnam’s 63 provinces have learning centres in all communes.

A lack of funding has forced many centers to shut down, while others have failed to provide relevant knowledge to their students.