Vietnam Cuts Public School Institutions by 50.6%, Orders Review of Oversized Schools

114 large schools face scrutiny after nationwide mergers

Vietnam has reduced its public education institutions by 18,975, or 50.6%, and moved 28,217 administrators into teaching, according to the Ministry of Education and Training. The government has now ordered a review of oversized schools, including 114 institutions with more than 100 classes, as the restructuring creates new pressures on staffing, safety and management.

Deputy Prime Minister Le Tien Chau called for the review at an October 9, 2026 meeting at the Government Office. Provincial and municipal authorities must complete it within October and promptly adjust institutions whose size exceeds their ability to manage them or threatens education quality, safety or access to schooling.

All 34 provinces and cities have completed their restructuring plans. Government Office Notice 523/TB-VPCP, which records the meeting conclusions, sets out further work on personnel assignments, financial handovers and school operations. Local authorities must report staffing results to the education and home affairs ministries before October 15.

The same meeting examined another major education programme: boarding schools covering several grade levels in border communes. All 108 schools in the first phase have opened for the 2026-2027 academic year, although only 40 have completed every construction component. Another 121 schools across 17 provinces and cities are targeted for completion before August 30, 2027.

For families and teachers, the immediate changes reach beyond school names. Larger institutions must coordinate staff and equipment across different campuses, while some children face longer journeys. Border schools must provide lessons, meals and student care while unfinished building work continues nearby.

What the reduction means for classrooms

The 50.6% national reduction exceeds the minimum target of 30% by 20.6 percentage points. The programme measured reductions against the public education network as it stood on July 1, 2025, with some localities encouraged to reach 50% by August 30, 2026.

Many former schools now operate as campuses or satellite sites within a larger institution. Children can therefore continue attending different physical locations while those locations share one leadership structure. The reduction counts institutions, while the remaining organisations may oversee numerous teaching sites.

Le Hong Hiep, a senior fellow and coordinator of the Vietnam Studies Programme at the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, examines this approach in his school merger analysis. He describes a policy intended to concentrate investment and move former teachers out of administrative posts and back into classrooms.

Earlier ministry estimates anticipated consolidating more than 11,000 schools, reassigning over 20,000 administrators and returning roughly 11,000 to teaching. The subsequent figure of 28,217 administrators assigned to teaching shows how far the personnel changes have extended beyond that initial estimate.

Politburo Resolution No. 71, issued in August 2025, places education within Vietnam's wider development reforms. Hiep connects the mergers with the agenda associated with Resolutions 57, 59, 66 and 68, covering technology, international integration, legal reform and private enterprise. Schools are expected to prepare the people needed for those ambitions.

Nha Trang shows the pressure of extreme scale

Nha Trang Primary School in Khanh Hoa province brings together 13 former schools across 18 sites. It has 287 classes and more than 10,500 pupils, making coordination between locations a central part of daily school management.

Principal Chau Dinh Mai Phuong said teaching, daytime boarding arrangements and student management were broadly stable. She also described subject teams containing 64 to 70 teachers and a school with only two accountants.

Phuong called for staffing rules that reflect the number of classes, pupils and locations. She also sought guidance on teaching time reductions and allowances for teachers taking on additional duties, including leading subject groups and organising student activities.

Other merged institutions in Nha Trang are also exceptionally large. A preschool formed from 13 schools has 124 groups and nearly 2,800 children. A lower secondary school assembled from seven schools has 205 classes and nearly 8,800 students.

Local mergers more commonly bring together two to six schools serving around 3,000 to 5,000 students. Nha Trang Primary School's enrolment exceeds twice the upper end of that range. Across Khanh Hoa, the network fell from 728 schools to 246, removing 640 principal and deputy principal posts.

These figures explain why the October review covers geography as well as enrolment. A leadership team responsible for distant sites must coordinate staffing, facilities and safety across several locations, each with its own daily needs.

Hanoi schools develop new ways to share staff

Hanoi reorganised 2,343 educational institutions, including schools and centres, into 1,092 units. That is a reduction of 1,251, or 53.3%. The network still serves more than 2.3 million students and employs over 120,000 administrators, teachers and other staff.

Thai Thinh Secondary School in Dong Da ward illustrates how a merger can operate on a smaller geographical scale. Following its merger with Thinh Quang Secondary School, it has two campuses, 57 classes, 2,325 students, three administrators, 80 teachers and 15 other staff.

Principal Nguyen Cao Cuong said the school was developing a map of staff capabilities to guide assignments. He described the priority in direct terms:

The focus remains on expertise and student quality.

Cuong's management framework unifies objectives, data, procedures, quality standards and school culture. It combines those five areas with three principles: clear responsibilities, authority accompanied by oversight, and evaluation based on results. Feedback from teachers, students and parents helps the school adjust its operations.

Giang Vo Secondary School, established in early August through the merger of Phan Chu Trinh and Nguyen Trai secondary schools, has about 5,600 students. Principal To Thi Hai Yen said teachers were being coordinated between campuses to address situations where one location had surplus staff in a subject while another faced a shortage.

Giang Vo is also developing a staff capability map. Its experience shows why returning administrators to teaching and distributing teachers effectively are separate tasks: a school needs the right subject teachers at the locations where students need them.

Families face changes to travel and routines

In Thanh Hoa province, parents kept more than 400 pupils home for several days to protest a merger that added more than two kilometres and a provincial road crossing to the journey to school. For those families, the administrative change immediately affected travel time and road safety.

At Giang Vo Secondary School, parent Lai To Quyen described initial concerns about timetables and transport arrangements. As operations became more stable, she said, families found it easier to organise their time and coordinate with the school.

Literature teacher Nguyen Hanh Le described teachers gradually working together more effectively after an initial adjustment period. Staff from different campuses brought their own experience and working practices, requiring discussion about what each former school should retain and what the new institution should do together.

Government directions place education quality, safety and students' interests at the centre of the restructuring. The October review gives local authorities responsibility for correcting arrangements that interfere with those priorities, including institutions that are too large to manage effectively.

Staffing and financial handovers remain unfinished

Government Office Notice 523/TB-VPCP identifies unresolved personnel assignments alongside delays in transferring finances, assets, records and data. Some institutions are also still completing the legal procedures required for their new organisation.

Local authorities must finish handing over documents, seals, bank accounts, school identification codes and facilities within October. Responsibilities at individual campuses and satellite sites must also be made clear.

Personnel deployment is to follow Government Resolution 37/2026/NQ-CP. Authorities must settle cases involving administrators, teachers and staff who still lack work assignments, including managers expected to move into teaching. Reports due before October 15 must explain unfinished work, identify responsibility and propose specific completion dates.

The Ministry of Education and Training will collect problems raised by local authorities, resolve matters within its powers and coordinate responses from other ministries. Issues requiring higher authority must go to the government and prime minister.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has been asked to propose suitable policies for affected managers and staff, including personnel working in large institutions with several campuses or grade levels. Specific allowances and support amounts have not been announced. The Ministry of Finance is responsible for guidance on financial, asset and funding issues so that schools can continue operating.

Border schools open before all building work ends

The 108 boarding schools opened in border communes provide education across several grade levels, together with accommodation and student care. Of those schools, 40 have completed all construction components, leaving 68 with work outstanding. That means about 37% are fully complete.

Some schools are holding classes while construction continues. Projects face shortages of materials and workers, as well as difficulties clearing land for construction. Chau instructed provinces to complete the remaining work and set a specific deadline for each unfinished school.

Facilities and construction components must meet the required conditions and pass acceptance inspections before use. These inspections are the formal checks needed before a completed part of a project can be put into operation. Student and staff safety must be protected wherever teaching and building work take place at the same time.

New boarding schools also face shortages of staff responsible for supervising students, psychological counselling, nutrition and academic administration. Those jobs support daily life beyond lessons, from student welfare to meal provision and the organisation of school activities.

Chau instructed authorities to ensure adequate teachers, support staff, funding and essential facilities for teaching, boarding and care. The education ministry must monitor each school's progress, identify delays and inspect operations after schools begin use.

Second phase projects face an August 2027 target

The second phase covers 121 schools in 17 provinces and cities. The October meeting recorded that the schools had completed procedures for construction starts or groundbreaking ceremonies; the subsequent Government Office notice described the 121 schools as having broken ground. Their completion target is before August 30, 2027.

Provincial and municipal People's Committee chairpersons must submit written commitments on construction schedules and quality to the prime minister and education ministry before October 20, 2026. The ministry must consolidate those commitments and report to the prime minister within October.

Provincial Party secretaries and People's Committee chairpersons were told to direct the projects personally from the start. Each school needs a critical path, meaning the sequence of tasks that determines the earliest possible completion date. Here, that runs from land clearance and investment procedures through construction, inspections and preparations to receive students.

Lessons from the first phase must inform site selection, geological surveys, design, cost estimates, material supply and building methods suited to local terrain and weather. The education ministry must issue its guidance and lessons document within October 2026.

The Ministry of Construction will work with the finance ministry and local authorities on obstacles involving material and labour prices, estimates, contracts and construction methods. Problems outside its authority must be referred for a higher decision.

The dates that define the next stage

The restructuring combines a completed round of institutional plans with deadlines for correcting operational problems. The border construction programme extends the timetable into the next academic year.

• July 1, 2025: Baseline for the school reduction targets.
• August 2025: Politburo Resolution No. 71 sets out the education reform agenda.
• August 30, 2026: Target date for reductions of up to 50% in localities encouraged to reach that level.
• October 9, 2026: Chau reviews school restructuring and border boarding school progress at the Government Office.
• Before October 15, 2026: Local authorities must report personnel deployment results to the home affairs and education ministries.
• Before October 20, 2026: Provincial and municipal chairpersons must submit commitments for second phase boarding schools.
• Within October 2026: Authorities must review oversized schools, complete handovers and issue guidance for the second construction phase.
• Before August 30, 2027: Target completion date for the 121 second phase schools.

General Secretary To Lam called in June 2026 for a unified national education data system capable of identifying teacher shortages, overcrowding and dropout risks in real time. Accurate information from individual campuses would help authorities track the very problems now assigned for review.

The immediate task is practical: match staff to classes, complete financial and legal transfers, correct schools that exceed their management capacity and make unfinished boarding facilities ready for safe use. The government's deadlines now focus on how the reorganised institutions function for students each day.

Key Points

• Vietnam has reduced public education institutions by 18,975, or 50.6%, across all 34 provinces and cities.
• 28,217 education administrators have been assigned to teaching.
• Authorities must review oversized institutions, including 114 with more than 100 classes, within October 2026.
• Some merged schools face unresolved staffing, financial, data and legal handovers.
• 108 first phase border boarding schools have opened, with 40 fully complete and 68 still requiring construction work.
• Another 121 border boarding schools are targeted for completion before August 30, 2027.