• Viet Nam had a population of 97.75 million (2021). There is an almost exact 50:50 split between males and females in the population.
• 7% of Viet Nam’s population lives in urban centres, while 62.3% lives in rural areas (2021).
• It is a country with a relatively youthful population with 70% of the population being under 35 years of age.
• K12 students account for about 5.55% of the population (17.6 million), among which only 4.8%, equivalent to 845,000 students, attend private, semi-public and international schools, most of which are 95, 2% enrol in the state-paid public school system.
• Spending on education accounts for a relatively large proportion of the state budget (20% - 22%) and the household budget (40% - 47%/ Only after food & shelter).
• 4% of total population in Vietnam have had access to electricity (2019)
• Internet penetration in Viet Nam stood at 70.3% (2021), which was higher than the average rate of 69% in the South-East Asia region (2021).
• The Internet speeds are slow compared to many of its peers. The average broadband download speed was only 7.02 megabytes per second, 10 times slower than Singapore at 70.86 Mbps (2020). Though on mobile networks the download speed was 34.51 Mbps (2020).
• There were 154.4 million mobile connections in Viet Nam (2021)
• The number of mobile connections in Viet Namwas equivalent 157.9% of the total population (2021)

The national education system reveals its disadvantages during Covid-19

The early period of the pandemic revealed many weaknesses in this segment on a national scale since the difference in the access of learners to online education and equipment between central cities and less developed or remote, mountainous areas in Viet Nam are large. Students in areas outside big cities often lack stable Internet access in their families, lack suitable learning equipment, and many have to study using the smartphones of their parents or siblings.

Based on the shortage of learning equipment for students in many provinces, some communities, groups and even the government have encouraged the donation of equipment for poor children to learn online. The most typical of which is the program "Internet and computers for children" launched by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) in 2021.

Viet Nam’s Digital Transformation in Education

To address the critical issues on education, Digital transformation in education has become one of the top priorities for the Viet Nam’s government and the MOET. The outbreak of covid-19 has also contributed to the rapid improvement of digital education infrastructure, helping Viet Nam move quickly and be relatively ready for the digital transformation in education. However, there is a large gap between education-related regulations and actual processes due to the remarkable development of education technology in Viet Nam in the past five years. Often, these regulations do not keep up well with the development of the industry.

In a nutshell, Vietnam is expected to witness strong transformations in education in general and Edtech in particular, due to essential needs of society and strong promotion and relatively good investment of the Vietnamese government.