
Computer Science in Vietnam - skybrian
http://neil.fraser.name/news/2013/03/16/
======
sondh
I have just graduated from VNU (Vietnam National University), major in
Information Systems and I don't recall being taught any of these. I live in
the capital so I'm sure my curriculum is the standard one, approved by the
Education Ministry: studied about Windows 3.1 at grade 3 (circa 1998),
Microsoft Office suite at grade 5, Pascal at grade 8 (secondary school),
Pascal again at grade 11 (high school). For high schoolers, we also have to
study either IT class or mechanic class for a few months. At college, we study
C/C++/Java/PHP but no mention of functional languages. The last exercise is
too hard and I would agree with luckymoney that it is only given in gifted
school/class.

What I'm trying to say is that the story is pretty one sided. The school
website[1] is currently down but I have found the school in the department
website[2]. The school appears to be one of the first three national-
standardized schools in Da Nang. It also focuses a lot in using IT for
management and teaching.

1: <http://www.bevandan.vnn.vn/>

2: <http://pgdthanhkhe.edu.vn/donvi/detail/48491409.aspx>

~~~
gruseom
Ignore my prying if this is too personal, but for someone in your situation
your English is incredible. How did you get it? Do you have native speakers in
your family, or have you spent much time in an Anglo country?

Here's why I'm curious. If Vietnam's education system is producing students
with such mastery of so foreign a language, that says something impressive
about Vietnam's education system and, by extension, about Vietnam. In a
roundabout way, it adds credibility to the OP as well.

~~~
sondh
I guess I graduated from a decent college and I live in the capital. Most of
my peers are pretty good at English especially writing and reading. Our
listening/speaking suck big time though. We have foreign language classes
since grade 3: English, French or Russian (not common). The courses focus on
grammar. I have heard that our grammar may be better than those of native
speakers (no confusion between "your" and "you're" for example).

About myself: I just read HN, join English communities like Reddit, Quora. I
try to travel but nothing much.

Regarding OP, his experience is just an exception. There are many other good
or bad things in our system. And if you ask me, I will say the education in
the U.S. is superior tbh.

~~~
witek
Hey, you're in Ha Noi? I'm half Vietnamese, might be going back soon. What's
your email?

~~~
sondh
Yes I'm currently in Hanoi for now. I have my address in HN profile page (not
sure if you can see it?).

~~~
winter_blue
Nope, not visible. You should put it in the 'about' section as well.

------
DanielBMarkham
What an interesting article! That set off my bullshit detector about half-way
through.

"School boards fight to keep CS out of schools, since every minute spent on CS
is one less minute spent on core subjects like English and math. The students'
test scores in these core subjects determine next year's funding, so CS is a
threat."

School boards fighting to keep CS out of schools? Huh?

I followed the link, and found a story from 4 years ago about how kids can use
the internet but don't know much about it. The most supportive paragraph I
found is from a quote by Computer Science Teachers Association's Chris
Stephenson "Stephenson said computer science classes might be an unintentional
casualty in the push to increase academic standards. Computer science is not
considered a core subject by the No Child Left Behind law, which influences
school priorities and budgets."

Looks like the CSTA were the ones pitching the piece to the Post, but who
knows.

What I _do_ know is that we need more Computer Science taught in schools, and
the U.S. is definitely falling behind. But what I _don't_ know is this idea
that school boards are actively fighting CS in the schools. Not until somebody
can show me something better than he did. (I'd also caution against stories
about one school district here or there being extrapolated into some kind of a
national disease.)

Please pardon the nit-picking -- this was a really good article all-around --
but this is an important subject in the states. The conversation over here is
not advanced by throw-away accusations from left field.

~~~
mhurron
> What I do know is that we need more Computer Science taught in schools

Why?

~~~
woodchuck64
You can't understand and be productive in today's world without understanding
computation.

~~~
mhurron
Many, many people are.

It might not seem like it when you work entirely with computers but it just
isn't that big a part of what most people do day to day. A computer is a tool,
no different than a hammer in most peoples jobs. They read their email, browse
some websites and do what ever specific thing in whatever specific application
their jobs tell them to. They don't need to know anything about what the
computer is doing and they don't care to know. Cars make more of an impact of
peoples lives than their computers do but we don't have someone constantly
saying how we need to make everyone a mechanic. Eating is more important to
life but we don't have a movement to make everyone a chef.

Knowledge of how a computer works or how you make it do something someone else
hasn't written an app for is just not at the same level that reading, writing
and arithmetic are. Step back from what you do all day and actually watch what
people do. Knowledge of why stuff happens on the devices they use just isn't
that important. They know what button to hit and that's all they need to know
to be productive in what they are doing.

~~~
woodchuck64
Computation should be at the same level of importance as reading, writing and
arithmetic, given that no other paradigm is contributing more to job
obsolescence right now.

But, sure, you can be productive without understanding computation. I should
have said "maximally productive". Even a chef benefits from understanding how
recipes mimic algorithms.

------
RobertLysik
Although I appreciate the effort that went into developing Blockly Maze, I am
unclear as to why it was developed, rather than suggesting that Scratch be
used to teach elementary school children in Vietnam. The Scratch development
environment is available in 44 different languages, including Vietnamese. It
is free to download from the MIT website. It's a fantastic tool for teaching
programming concepts to children. Both of my children, ages 5 and 9, have been
busily creating their own games and animation using this tool. Are there
restrictions that would prevent the export of Scratch to Vietnam?

~~~
skybrian
Neil wrote Blockly and the maze demo for other purposes. (He has shown it off
at Maker Faire before.) For this project he just adapted it.

<https://code.google.com/p/blockly/>

------
luckymoney
I hope the OP can go here and see this, but I am currently in Vietnam as well.
I am a CS student studying aboard in the US, but I was born and raised in
Vietnam. I am currently on vacation. Hope we can get in touch :)

And yes, I can confirm these education is true. However, the level of the last
problem was taught to very few chosen gifted student in a very limited
selected school. I do remember me learning about matrix, dynamic programing,
graph theory, various pascal optimization for quicker run. The rule was, if
you program run more than 1s, you're out(except stated otherwise).

~~~
msohcw
I'm not sure (primarily because I can't see the images) but that sounds like a
basic flood fill question doesn't it? Does everyone in Vietnam do competitive
algorithmic programming? (That sounds like what you're describing.) That's
really interesting, because where I'm from that's typically taken only on
interest, and there aren't that many interested.

~~~
tuananh
I studied at Ha Noi University of Science, High School for Gifted Students and
I can confirmed about algorithmic programming part. People consider
math/algorithmic stuff is a major skill for CS; without it, do not even
consider going CS major.

------
lgleason
Rant Ahead....

I'm waiting for the person to pipe up saying they are going to outsource their
development to Vietnam after reading this article. Stuff will happen, the hype
will be replaced with reality and there will be lots of work cleaning up the
mess.

I have worked on two rails projects that were done by two different teams over
there. Both were so bad that the only real answer was to rewrite from scratch.

Are there good developers over there...yes. Those developers will be the
exception like they are everywhere in the world.....and won't be the $10 an
hour guys. A good educational system helps, but at the end of the day even if
you are really good at solving academic problems (which a lot of engineers
worldwide are not), unless those skills are combined with discipline such as
TDD, the ability to interface with a client and understand the domain....... a
lot can break down.

I have no doubt that what the author saw at this one school was true. But what
if you went to one of the best elementary, high schools and colleges in the
US.....which happened to be clustered in the same area....and then said that
the US system is awesome after having visited a really advanced magnet school
and the Stanford computer science department....both on guided tours by the
administration where they are going to put their best foot forward and only
show the gifted classes.

After all, the quality of the Stanford CS courses must be representative of
all American schools such as ITT Tech and your run of the mill 2 years party
schools.

~~~
codersquare
Sorry to hear about your bad experiences. If you need a high quality partner
in outsourcing to Vietnam, please shoot me an email codersquare.com AT
gmail.com . I'm the CTO at codersquare.com . A promise made that you won't be
disappointed

~~~
juliob
Hey codersquare, your web site navigation is broken.

------
woodchuck64
"I asked what a teacher's salary was. $100 per month. So I went to an ATM and
bought them a second teacher for the next year."

That's got to feel good.

------
khadgar
Actually the general situation in VN is not really different from what author
described about US CS education for high school students. In VN, CS is
literally translated and understood as Information Technology. Students,
parents and teachers still focus primarily on natural science subject like
Math, Physics and Chemistry because they are needed for the University
Entrance Exam, considered as the terminal goal for every student, as well as
traditional subjects required for high school graduation. For CS/IT, a typical
high school student in VN most likely never know the advanced topics shownn in
the article. They are only taught the basic of Pascal at best, as well as
daily usage of MS Office, Windows, DOS. Only students enrolling in specialized
classes will get trained in those topics, usually for national/international
competitions. Another thing to note is the primary school mentioned by the
author is located in Da Nang, arguably the best city in VN. Its local
government recently has invested a lot in education. It is good to see their
effort showing very promising result.

------
stnguyenvn
Your article's great! I'm an IT guy in Vietnam and I really appreciate your
help with IT teaching for Vietnamese students.

However, there're some points which I don't agree with you:

1\. This school seems to be a good one in a great city in Vietnam. No way
they're lack of money to hire enough CS teachers to teach their students. No
offense, your help's great. But I just don't agree with the reason they (the
school) told you.

2\. Broadband Internet connection is cheap and popular in cities nowadays. A
lot of Vietnamese students have ADSL or Fibre connection at home, so I don't
think the school "can't afford a reliable internet connection". There're even
educational service plans with much cheaper price.

3\. The CS program you mentioned in your article is the advanced one.

Again, I love your work. Thank you ;)

~~~
lexhung
_No way they're lack of money to hire enough CS teachers to teach their
students_

The level of bureaucracy is unmeasurable. Money leaks.

------
cryptbe
_I walked into a high school CS class, again without any advance notice. The
class was working on the assignment below (partially translated by their
teacher for my benefit afterwards). Given a data file describing a maze with
diagonal walls, count the number of enclosed areas, and measure the size of
the largest one._

What the OP was seeing is probably a special class in a high school for gifted
students. Since winning national and international student competition is kind
of a big deal in Vietnam, most major cities and provinces have such a school,
but it's not easy to apply to them. All schools require applicants to take
some tough and competitive entrance test that may have math problems harder
than those in SAT or even GRE. As a result, the students who get in are
usually the best of their ages, and they will be trained rigorously and
restlessly for three years with the sole goal of winning a major programming
contest such as IOI. That means they are the exception, not the norm. Most
high school and even university students in the country can't tell what a loop
is, let alone solving algorithmic problems.

------
undefuser
Another Vietnamese here. I have been oversea for a while so I don't know how
exactly things have changed over the years, but in my time things were totally
different from this. When I was in primary school, they didn't teach anything
related to programming. Only when I got to grade 8 that we got to learn Pascal
(which I decided to pick up myself since grade 6). Most of my friends
struggled big time with it in the next 5 years. They didn't even understand
the basic concepts. But I guess the one to be blamed is the way programming
was being taught back then. It did not create any motivations for people to
study. So I'm glad that it has changed, for the better.

Regarding the part where author said "Vietnam is a 100% Windows XP
monoculture" is not quite true. Especially in the recent years. Many people
have adopted Windows 7 and even Windows 8, and stuff like Android smartphones
or iPhone are getting more and more prevalent. I guess what happened is that
schools don't have the budget to upgrade both software _and_ hardware. That
will take some time.

------
loser777
I would say Computer Science education (K-12) in the United States is far from
uniform and that the author unfairly generalizes. I moved around a bit as a
kid, and these were my experiences:

Grades K-1 (Lincoln, NE): Messing around and playing with Apple eMacs (think
stuff like Kid Pix Studio)

Grades 1-2 (Fremont, CA): Pretty much nothing

Grades 2-3 (La Habra, CA): Pretty much nothing

Grades 3-5 (Palo Alto, CA): Using some older Apple hardware, by this point we
were doing written assignments in Word.

Grade 5-6 (Irvine, CA-stayed here through high school): A dedicated "Computer"
class (met maybe once a week) where we learned the Office suite and practiced
touch typing. I learned from friends that they had actually been practicing
touch typing from a very early age, so it was probably standard to be at about
50 wpm in Grade 5) This was the first time I recalled having very large
computer labs in school.

Grade 7: A daily class period (for one trimester) where we learned very very
basic html (FRONTPAGE - LOL) and other things. As a kid who had a budding
interest in computers at this point, I felt this class to be unbearably slow
paced and rudimentary. So slow paced in fact, that I don't even remember what
else was covered because I didn't learn anything new.

Grade 8, 9, 12: Nothing, but basic computer literacy was necessary for things
like writing papers and presentations.

Grade 11: Took AP Computer Science, which in my opinion condenses much of the
"early start" CS the author mentions into a single year later on. I'm not sure
which is better, but I'm pointing out that if you have an AP CS course, it's
likely going to cover all of the rudimentary stuff very quickly anyway. For
those unfamiliar with AP CS, it covers the rudiments of OOP (inheritance,
polymorphism, etc.) as well as some of your basic sorting algorithms and easy
recursion. Also took a C++ class during this time at a local community college
(transferable units), which in my opinion, was even LESS rigorous than AP CS.

------
sluu99
This post does not describe the typical school in Vietnam. Unless it has
dramatically changed over the last 6 years, last I recall, the most
programming was taught in high school was some Hello world and how to use
loops. Having said that, I was selected (via an MS Excel test) into a "gifted"
team since 8th grade that was trained algorithmic programming to compete with
other school districts. But that's not typical and is in no way the regular
ciriculum.

------
tommytxtruong
I'm Vietnamese and when I was young, I was not taught those thing :) probably
they are added recently

------
gsg
Just for fun I took a crack at the maze problem and ended up with a
(quasi-)linear time union-find solution. Maybe I over-engineered, but I'm very
impressed if schoolkids are really learning about algorithms like that.

------
oceanician
Inspiring article. Also looking back to the root of the site, I'm in awe of
how much one person can blog in a quality manner! Pretty jealous!

------
teyc
This guy should give a TED talk.

------
nishithfrrole
Wow! And I used to think India is great..

~~~
aviraldg
It's pretty much the same in India: LOGO -> BASIC -> Java + problem solving.

~~~
MoreMoschops
Sadly, the next step appears to be:

-> using Turbo-C++ for DOS (to learn pre-1998 C++) at university

~~~
aviraldg
They still have it installed on some of the PCs at my school, but it's never
used. But yeah, they way they deal with whatever they do teach is pitiful. No
generics, exception handling, threading etc with Java. :-/ (worst part: kids
are taught to tack on "throws IOException" at the end of the signature every
method "where they want to use I/O" without any explanation of why that is the
case.) They still use an ancient (and bugged) version of JDK and insist upon
using deprecated classes.

The main problem here is that the teachers themselves aren't up to date and
don't really know what they're teaching that well.

