Information and communication technology in teacher education in Vietnam: from policy to practice

During the school year 2008–2009, the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam launched the ‘Year of ICT’ to produce a breakthrough in educational innovation. In light of this development we have carried out a policy analysis to study the national vision on ICT in education. The policy analysis takes into account a decade of governmental policy guidelines on ICT and education, starting from 2000—the year that the Ministry announced its Master Plan for ICT in education. A critical analysis puts rationales in perspective. Exploratory analysis at the level of five provincial teacher education institutions sheds light on the impact of these guidelines in teacher education. 783 educators completed a self-report questionnaire addressing factors of access, capacities and actual use of ICT in teaching practice. To assess the adopted discourse and operational planning, technology plans of the different institutions are analyzed. It is argued that unbalanced operational planning in the technology plans led to a gap between the current rhetoric in policy guidelines, vision statements of the institutions and the reality in teaching practice.

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