The Unowned Curriculum: Institutional Anchoring of Economics Education in Vietnam’sGeneral Education Reform
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33152/jmphss-10.6.2Keywords:
Economics education, Curriculum policy, Vertical articulation, Policy coherence, VietnamAbstract
Economics education is endorsed almost everywhere as a competence of modern citizenship, yet in many middle-income systems the endorsement stops at the strategy document: the field is named in policy but given no place in the curriculum, no assessment, no qualified teacher and no responsible agency. The study examines how economics education is institutionally anchored in Vietnam’s curriculum policy, how this compares with five reference systems, and what follows for the current revision of the 2018 General Education Curriculum. Using qualitative comparative policy analysis, we coded 46 curriculum and macro-policy documents from China, England, Bavaria (Germany), Finland, Ontario (Canada) and Vietnam and scored each system on five anchors (locus, progression, accountability, capacity and stewardship). Administrative records of the Vietnam Economics Olympiad and of Vietnam’s International Economics Olympiad delegations for 2021 to 2026 (n = 25 recorded delegates) provided triangulation. Every reference system scored at least four of ten rubric points; Vietnam scored two. Its lower secondary provision shows vertical articulation within the level, a four-year spiral across three subjects, but it is bounded by discontinuities and has no assessment signal, teacher-qualification pathway or designated steward. Where the state does not anchor the field, provision migrates to a fee-charging, metropolitan and selective market. In 2021 to 2023, when complete delegations were recorded, 12 of 15 olympiad delegates (80%) came from specialised, private or international schools in five provinces; in 2024 to 2026, when only medal-winners were recorded, all 10 did, all from Hanoi. Vietnam’s constraint is institutional carriage, not curricular content. Policy coherence requires the five anchors to be specified, and the paper converts them into five design moves for the current revision.
References
Agarwal, M. (2022). Economics for middle school: Curriculum and pedagogy. Taylor; Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003158332
Amagir, A., Groot, W., Maassen van den Brink, H., & Wilschut, A. (2018). A review of financial-literacy education programs for children and adolescents. Citizenship, Social and Economics Education, 17(1), 56–80. https://doi.org/10.1177/2047173417719555
Braun, A., Ball, S. J., Maguire, M., & Hoskins, K. (2011). Taking context seriously: Towards explaining policy enactments in the secondary school. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32(4), 585–596. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2011.601555
Bruner, J. S. (1960). The process of education. Harvard University Press.
Campbell, J. L., Quincy, C., Osserman, J., & Pedersen, O. K. (2013). Coding in-depth semistructured interviews: Problems of unitization and intercoder reliability and agreement. Sociological Methods and Research, 42(3), 294–320. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124113500475
Cohen, D. K., & Ball, D. L. (1999). Instruction, capacity, and improvement (CPRE Research Report No. RR-43). Consortium for Policy Research in Education, University of Pennsylvania.
Cohen, D. K., Raudenbush, S. W., & Ball, D. L. (2003). Resources, instruction, and research. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 25(2), 119–142. https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737025002119
Council for Economic Education. (2010). The voluntary national content standards in economics (tech. rep.). Council for Economic Education.
Council for Economic Education and Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy. (2021). National standards for personal financial education. https://www.jumpstart.org/education/national-standards/
Dai bieu Nhan dan. (2024). Financial education for students to be piloted. https://tinyurl.com/yddtttb6
Dang, H.-A. (2007). The determinants and impact of private tutoring classes in Vietnam. Economics of Education Review, 26(6), 683–698. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2007.10.003
Dixon, F. H. (1898). The teaching of economics in the secondary schools. The School Review, 6(1), 17–27. https://doi.org/10.1086/433877
Eberle, M., & Oberrauch, L. (2023). What a difference three years of economics education make: Evidence from lower stream schools in Germany. International Review of Economics Education, 42, 100259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iree.2022.100259
Finnish National Board of Education. (2016). National core curriculum for basic education 2014. Porvoon Kirjakeskus.
Fridrich, C. (2021). Teaching economics outside one’s own subject area at the lower secondary level in Austria: Enriching or embarrassing? Journal of Social Science Education, 20(1), 30–64. https://doi.org/10.11576/jsse-3737
General Statistics Office and UNICEF. (2021). Survey measuring Viet Nam Sustainable Development Goal indicators on children and women 2020–2021: Key indicators (tech. rep.). General Statistics Office.
House of Commons Library. (2024). Personal, social, health and economic education in schools England) (Research Briefing No. CBP-7303) (tech. rep.). UK, Parliament. https://shorturl.at/ovzyF
Kaiser, T., Lusardi, A., Menkhoff, L., & Urban, C. (2022). Financial education affects financial knowledge and downstream behaviors. Journal of Financial Economics, 145(2), 255–272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2021.09.022
Kaiser, T., & Menkhoff, L. (2017). Does financial education impact financial literacy and financial behavior, and if so, when? The World Bank Economic Review, 31(3), 611–630. https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/lhx018
Kaiser, T., & Menkhoff, L. (2020). Financial education in schools: A meta-analysis of experimental studies. Economics of Education Review, 78, 101930. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2019.101930
Klapper, L., Lusardi, A., & Panos, G. A. (2013). Financial literacy and its consequences: Evidence from Russia during the financial crisis. Journal of Banking and Finance, 37(10), 3904–3923. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2013.07.014
Lusardi, A., & Mitchell, O. S. (2014). The economic importance of financial literacy: Theory and evidence. Journal of Economic Literature, 52(1), 5–44. https://doi.org/10.1257/jel.52.1.5
Lusardi, A., & Mitchell, O. S. (2023). The importance of financial literacy: Opening a new field. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 37(4), 137–154. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.37.4.137
Ministry of Education and Training. (2018a). General education curriculum: Civic education (issued with circular no. 32/2018/tt-bgddt of 26 december 2018). ministry of education and training. (tech. rep.). Ministry of Education and Training.
Ministry of Education and Training. (2018b). General education curriculum: Experiential activities and career-oriented experiential activities (issued with circular no. 32/2018/tt-bgddt of 26 december 2018) (tech. rep.). Ministry of Education and Training.
Ministry of Education and Training. (2018c). General education curriculum: General education curriculum: Mathematics (issued with
Circular No. 32/2018/TT-BGDDT of 26 December 2018) (tech. rep.). Ministry of Education and Training.
Ministry of Education and Training. (2018d). General education curriculum: Overall programme (issued with Circular No. 32/2018/TTBGDDT of 26 December 2018) (tech. rep.). Ministry of Education and Training.
Morgan, P. J., & Trinh, L. Q. (2019). Determinants and impacts of financial literacy in Cambodia and Viet Nam. Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 12(1), 19. https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm12010019
National Assembly of Vietnam. (2025). Resolution No. 202-2025-QH15 of 12 June 2025 on the arrangement of provincial-level administrative units. https://shorturl.at/otdo9
Nguyen, T. T., Do, T. H., Nguyen, M. D., Pham, T. P. T., & Pham, T. H. T. (2025). Economics education content for lower secondary students in selected countries: Lessons for Vietnam. In Proceedings of the 2025 Educational Science Conference ”Education in the era of national rise”.
Nguyen, T. A. N., & Luong, T. T. H. (2023). The determinants of financial inclusion in Vietnam: A demand-side approach. Sage Open, 13(4), 21582440231210639. https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440231210639
Nhan Dan. (2026). There are high expectations for the synchronized revision of the curriculum and textbooks. https://shorturl.at/YQLPC
O O’Connor, C., & Joffe, H. (2020). Intercoder reliability in qualitative research: Debates and practical guidelines. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 19, 16.
OECD. (2020a). Curriculum overload: A way forward. https://shorturl.at/4Edok
OECD. (2020b). PISA 2018 results (Volume IV): Are students smart about money? (Tech. rep.). OECD Publishing.
OECD. (2024). PISA 2022 results Volume IV: How financially smart are students OECD. https://shorturl.at/pBgyr
OECD. (2025). OECD economic surveys: Viet Nam 2025. https://shorturl.at/zwbjY
Ontario Ministry of Education. (2016). The Ontario curriculum, Grades 4-8: Financial literacy scope and sequence of expectations. https://shorturl.at/VyyeK
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Nguyen Thanh Tam, Trinh Huy Hong, Ta Kim Chi, Pham Thi Thuy Hong, Nguyen Minh Duc, Hoang Phuong Dung
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
