Vietnam astonished the world when the results of the Programme for International Student Assessment 2012 were published. Although economically the least advantaged of the 65 participating countries, Vietnam ranked eighth worldwide in the science test, outperforming most rich, western countries. Vietnam maintained this ranking in 2015; meanwhile, the UK lagged behind in 15th position.

And there are other signs that this developing country achieves particularly impressive results.The University of Oxford Young Lives project has been tracking student performance in Vietnam and several other developing countries since 2002. As long ago as 2013 Jo Boyden, head of young lives at Oxford, expressed astonishment at the academic outcomes her team had observed, saying: “Pupil performance in Vietnam is truly exceptional.”

So, what’s the secret? And is there anything that we here in the UK can learn from Vietnam? The Education Development Trust has spent the past two years talking to people in four contrasting Vietnamese provinces, trying to understand just how the Vietnamese school system works.

‘The power of culture and aspirations’

Unsurprisingly, the story testifies to the power of culture and aspirations. Our witnesses spoke repeatedly about the way many poor parents instilled in their children the idea that doing well at school was essential as a way of escaping from a life of poverty. When we asked teachers to explain the success of Vietnamese students in the Pisa tests, they rarely attempted to take the credit as education professionals. Instead, they told us about “the learning tradition” at the heart of the Vietnamese view of life.

Of course, it is impossible for other countries to replicate exactly the Vietnamese “learning tradition”. However, our investigation also suggested that, in addition to cultural factors, there are distinctive and promising features to the internal working of the school system in Vietnam that could be relevant for teachers in the UK. We have identified five features of the Vietnamese system that provide food for thought for teachers and policymakers here in the UK:

1. Politicians in Vietnam don’t keep changing direction: education policies have been consistent over more than two decades.

The government has invested heavily in school infrastructure since the 1990s. The fundamental direction of other key policies has not changed in that time: a focus on pre-school so that children are “school-ready”, improving pre-service training and seeking to narrow the gap between ethnic majority and minority students.

2. Vietnamese schools are serious professional learning communities. 

Vietnamese teachers are involved in a continuous cycle of professional reflection based on in-school monitoring and mentoring systems that begin with self-review and peer-review. Each teacher is a member of a “subject group”. Within each group, teachers take regular turns to observe their colleagues and provide feedback.

3. There is a lively professional discourse about pedagogy.

The government in Vietnam has been encouraging teachers to use more engaging “student-centred” classroom methods for the past two decades. At the same time, teachers make their own day-to-day decisions about teaching styles and described how they used a mix of traditional and more modern methods. One particular strength of Vietnamese teachers appears to be their ability to give individual students diagnostic feedback, even in the context of classes of over 40 students.

4. Headteachers in Vietnam are preoccupied with classroom practice.

Government regulations require headteachers to continue as classroom teachers. This is no coincidence. Headteachers are expected, above all, to focus on what happens in classrooms. They are chosen because of their reputation as excellent classroom practitioners. They don’t spend time making decisions about how to spend the budget. Instead, they spend many hours in the classrooms of their colleagues providing diagnostic feedback on teaching and learning.

5. Parental partnership is unusually strong in Vietnam.

Government regulations require schools to establish partnership relationships with parents. Not only is there is a parent board in every school, there should also be a parent committee at the level of every class or tutor group of students, providing a forum for conversation between parents and teachers as to how they can work together to improve learning outcomes. We talked to a sample of 350 parents: not a single parent agreed with a survey statement suggesting that they never felt listened to by the school.

Vietnam is a poor but very ambitious country. The Vietnamese story is a source of optimism for all low-income countries wishing to transform the economy through the power of education. But perhaps there are also a few things that rich countries, such as the UK, can learn, too.

Tony McAleavy is research and consultancy director at Education Development Trust