Vietnam is entering a new phase of its economic development. After decades of growth driven by manufacturing, exports and integration into global value chains, its ambition to become a high-income economy by 2045 will depend increasingly on higher-level skills, technological capability and a workforce prepared for more sophisticated production and innovation.
Recent evidence from the World Bank, OECD, Asian Development Bank and UNESCO shows considerable momentum, but also reveals where the pressure is building. Teachers are embracing AI at striking rates, digital education is moving towards scale and the demand for advanced skills is growing. At the same time, infrastructure gaps persist, industry-linked training needs strengthening and the supply of highly skilled workers remains limited.
Vietnam’s challenge is therefore no longer simply to expand education. It is to build the skills and institutional capacity required for the next stage of its economic transformation.
Sources: World Bank, Viet Nam 2045: Trading Up in a Changing World (2025); OECD, Results from TALIS 2024 – Viet Nam Country Note (2025); Asian Development Bank, Viet Nam: Technical and Vocational Education and Training Sector Assessment (2020); UNESCO, Advancing Equitable and Inclusive Digital Transformation in Education in Viet Nam.
The Economic Model Is Changing — and the Skills Model Must Change with It
Vietnam’s manufacturing success has benefited from an abundant workforce and competitive production costs. That model generated employment, exports and rising incomes while establishing the country as an important link in global manufacturing. The capabilities required for the next stage are different.
The World Bank estimates that only 5% of Vietnam’s manufacturing workforce is high-skilled, while just 10% of the population holds a bachelor’s degree. Demand for qualified workers is already increasing, particularly in technology-intensive manufacturing.
The structure of the economy tells another part of the story. Foreign-owned firms account for 73% of Vietnam’s exports, while the participation of domestic businesses in global supply chains declined from 35% to 18% between 2009 and 2023. Services account for only 12% of total exports and 7% of manufacturing exports.
Behind these figures lies a skills question. Capturing more value domestically through engineering, R&D, advanced manufacturing, digital services and innovation requires a deeper pool of technical and professional expertise. The World Bank accordingly identifies a larger high-skilled manufacturing workforce, greater tertiary attainment, stronger STEM and research infrastructure and closer industry–academia cooperation among the priorities for Vietnam’s next development phase.
Education and skills development are therefore becoming part of Vietnam’s industrial strategy — and that considerably changes the significance of the education market.
The Skills Gap Is Not Only at University Level
More university graduates will be needed, but higher education alone cannot provide the workforce required by a more technologically sophisticated economy.
Advanced manufacturing also depends on technicians, technologists, automation specialists, machine operators, maintenance professionals and instructors able to work with increasingly complex production systems. This places TVET directly at the centre of the transition.
The workforce Vietnam needs sits across the qualification spectrum — particularly in the technical space between engineering knowledge and industrial production.
ADB’s analysis of Industry 4.0 in Vietnam shows how quickly occupational requirements can shift. In the logistics and agro-processing sectors studied, new technologies could displace between one-quarter and one-third of existing jobs. Yet the same analysis suggests that additional labour demand could ultimately exceed those losses.
This is an important distinction. The challenge is not necessarily a shortage of future jobs. It is the possibility that new jobs and new skill requirements emerge faster than the workforce can adapt.
That makes flexible upskilling and reskilling increasingly important, alongside training environments that expose learners to automation, mechatronics, digital systems, modern logistics, advanced manufacturing and green technologies.
For companies working in technical education, this is where Vietnam’s economic ambitions begin to translate into tangible education needs: modern laboratories, simulation and training systems, industry-relevant curricula and instructors able to teach with the technologies learners will encounter at work.
The Classroom Is Moving Faster Than the Infrastructure Around It
One of the most striking findings in OECD TALIS 2024 is the extent to which Vietnamese teachers are already working with artificial intelligence. 64% of lower-secondary teachers report having used AI in their work, compared with an OECD average of 36%.
Among those using it, 95% use AI to generate lesson plans or activities, 91% to learn about or summarise topics, and 83% to help students practise skills through real-life scenarios. Digital practice extends further: 37% of teachers work in schools where at least one lesson had been delivered online or in hybrid form during the previous month, against 16% across the OECD.
These figures challenge the idea of Vietnam as an education market still at the beginning of digital adoption. A substantial part of the teaching workforce is already experimenting with new tools.
The constraint becomes visible on the other side of the data. Among teachers who had not used AI, 71% cited inadequate school infrastructure, almost twice the OECD average of 37%, while 60% said they lacked the necessary knowledge and skills.
Taken together, these findings point to a market where willingness is already present, but the conditions for consistent implementation remain uneven. The opportunity is consequently shifting from introducing technology towards making it work reliably, appropriately and at scale.
Vietnam does not need to be convinced of digital education — the challenge is turning existing readiness into quality at scale.
Teacher Readiness Is an Asset to Build On
The TALIS findings show a profession with a strong foundation. Among recent teacher graduates, 96% rate the overall quality of their initial teacher education highly, compared with 75% across the OECD, and 86% say their initial preparation equipped them well to use digital resources and tools.
Professional learning is also viewed positively. 95% of Vietnamese teachers say recent professional development had a positive impact on their teaching, compared with an OECD average of 55%.
Yet there is no sense that development is complete. Some 69% report a high need for further learning in their subject field, 67% in subject pedagogy and 64% in curriculum knowledge.
One figure is particularly relevant in the context of closer education–industry cooperation: only 14% of Vietnamese teachers report professional experience outside teaching, compared with 57% across the OECD.
Vietnam’s teacher-development challenge is less about resistance to change and more about keeping professional capacity aligned with a changing system.
As technologies and workplace practices evolve, stronger contact between educators and industry could become increasingly valuable, especially in STEM and vocational education. Teacher and instructor development can therefore become a bridge between new technologies entering the economy and the knowledge reaching learners.
This also suggests that professional development should accompany new educational solutions from the outset rather than being treated as an afterthought once equipment or technology has been installed.
Digital Transformation Is Moving from Pilots to Scale
Recent implementation supported by UNESCO and partners gives an indication of the scale already being pursued. 260,000 teachers and education managers have been trained in innovative, inclusive and technology-enabled pedagogies, while around 4 million children have directly benefited.
The work extends beyond devices and connectivity. It includes AI-powered adaptive learning resources in Vietnamese and ethnic minority languages, digital and green skills, connected learning environments and social innovation within TVET.
The next stage of digital education in Vietnam is about scale, localisation and integration — not first adoption.
Scaling these approaches inevitably exposes a different set of challenges. Urban and rural infrastructure remains uneven. Digital and AI literacy varies. Locally adapted learning resources are still needed, and integrating future-ready skills into curricula requires more than simply introducing new technology.
For international providers, this marks an important transition. The relevant questions are increasingly about localisation, interoperability, inclusion, assessment, teacher support and the ability of solutions to function within a large and diverse education system.
Leadership Is Part of the Infrastructure
UNESCO’s recent work on education leadership adds another dimension. Vietnamese school principals spend only 21.5% of their time on instruction-related activities, while 64% report a strong need for additional training, including in data use, inclusion and teacher support.
This matters because educational investment is often discussed in terms of what institutions need to acquire. Less attention is paid to their capacity to absorb and sustain those investments.
A STEM laboratory, AI platform or advanced vocational training system can only deliver its intended value when institutions know how to integrate it into teaching, develop staff around it and assess whether it is improving learning.
Leadership, teacher development and implementation support are therefore not peripheral services around an education solution. In many cases, they determine whether that solution succeeds.
Education technology creates capacity only when institutions are equipped to use it well.
From Supplying Products to Building Capability
Vietnam wants to create more value within its economy. That requires more advanced skills. TVET must respond to changing occupations and technologies. Teachers show considerable openness to digital innovation, while infrastructure and professional capacity remain uneven. Large-scale digital programmes demonstrate that implementation is already happening, but also expose the complexity of taking solutions beyond individual pilots.
The resulting opportunity spans STEM and engineering education, automation and mechatronics, modern TVET laboratories, simulation and applied learning, AI-enabled education, digital infrastructure, green skills, teacher and instructor development, curriculum modernisation, assessment and industry-linked training.
Yet the more useful distinction is between supplying a product and building a capability.
A laboratory has limited value without instructors who can use it. Technology has limited impact when it sits outside the curriculum. Training loses relevance when it is disconnected from changing workplace practice.
In Vietnam, the stronger proposition is therefore increasingly an integrated one: technology supported by pedagogy, professional development, curriculum relevance and industry connection.
That is also where international education providers can bring more than equipment. They can bring experience from other systems, implementation knowledge and models that help institutions translate investment into lasting capacity.
Vietnam’s next education investment cycle is likely to reward solutions that build capability, not technology in isolation.
Why Vietnam Deserves Attention Now
For an education solution provider assessing Vietnam, market size alone is not the most useful indicator. The more important question is where the country’s economic priorities are creating education needs that institutions must now address.
The evidence gives several answers.
Higher-value manufacturing requires a deeper technical workforce. Digital transformation is creating demand for infrastructure and more sophisticated learning solutions. Teachers are already engaging with AI. TVET needs closer links with industry. Institutions need stronger implementation capacity. And the transition towards more digital, automated and lower-carbon production will continue to reshape the skills employers require.
Economic necessity, education reform and technological readiness are beginning to converge.
The opportunity is therefore real, but it is not uniform. Understanding which priorities are moving from national strategy into institutional programmes, where investment decisions are being made and which organisations are looking for international expertise is essential.
For providers considering the market, this makes direct engagement particularly valuable. It is through conversations with ministries, TVET institutions, universities, innovation organisations and industry that broad reform priorities become concrete partnership and project opportunities.
Worlddidac Perspective
Vietnam has already demonstrated its ability to expand education, develop a highly engaged teaching profession, embrace digital technologies and establish itself as a major manufacturing economy. Its next challenge is different: building the human capital and institutional capabilities needed to create more value domestically and compete in increasingly technology-intensive industries.
This places education providers in an interesting position. The need is not simply for more technology, but for modern technical learning environments, stronger STEM capacity, industry-connected TVET, continuous teacher and instructor development, digital infrastructure and solutions that turn economic priorities into teachable and measurable skills.
Understanding where these needs sit within Vietnam’s education ecosystem will be critical. Reform is taking place across ministries, vocational institutions, universities, innovation organisations and industry, and each part of that system presents different priorities, decision-making structures and routes to cooperation.
For Worlddidac members and partners looking at Vietnam, the opportunity lies in identifying where their expertise can contribute to that transformation — and where the right institutional relationships can turn expertise into practical cooperation.
Vietnam is building the skills infrastructure for the next stage of its economy. For education solution providers, this is a market worth understanding now.
Explore More Worlddidac Focus Insights
This publication is part of the Worlddidac Focus series, where we analyse global education and skills developments and translate them into practical implications for education providers, TVET systems, policy makers and industry stakeholders.
