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What Explains Vietnam’s Exceptional Performance in Education Relative to Other Countries? Analysis of the 2012 and 2015 PISA Data

Author

Listed:
  • Hai-Anh Dang

    (World Bank)

  • Paul Glewwe

    (University of Minnesota)

  • Khoa Vu

    (University of Minnesota)

  • Jongwook Lee

    (Seoul National University)

Abstract
Despite being the poorest or second poorest participant, Vietnam performed much better than all other developing countries, and even ahead of wealthier countries such as the U.S. and the U.K., on the 2012 and 2015 PISA assessments. We provide a rigorous investigation of Vietnam’s strong performance. After making various parametric and non-parametric corrections for potentially non-representative PISA samples, including bias due to Vietnam’s large out-of-school population, Vietnam still remains a large positive outlier conditional on its income. Possible higher motivation of, and coaching given to, Vietnamese students only partly explains Vietnam’s performance, and this is also the case for various observed household- and school-level variables. Finally, Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions indicate that the gap in average test scores between Vietnam and the other participating countries is due not to differences in students’ and schools’ observed characteristics, but instead to Vietnam’s greater “productivity†of those characteristics.

Suggested Citation

  • Hai-Anh Dang & Paul Glewwe & Khoa Vu & Jongwook Lee, 2021. "What Explains Vietnam’s Exceptional Performance in Education Relative to Other Countries? Analysis of the 2012 and 2015 PISA Data," Working Papers 580, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    • Handle: RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2021-580
    as

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    File URL: http://www.ecineq.org/milano/WP/ECINEQ2021-580.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2021
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Asadullah, M. Niaz & Perera, Liyanage Devangi H. & Xiao, Saizi, 2020. "Vietnam’s extraordinary performance in the PISA assessment: A cultural explanation of an education paradox," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 42(5), pages 913-932.
    2. Roland G. Fryer & Steven D. Levitt, 2004. "Understanding the Black-White Test Score Gap in the First Two Years of School," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(2), pages 447-464, May.
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    4. Brian A. Jacob & Steven D. Levitt, 2003. "Rotten Apples: An Investigation of the Prevalence and Predictors of Teacher Cheating," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 843-877.
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    Cited by:

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    education; student learning; test scores; enrollment; PISA; Vietnam;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H0 - Public Economics - - General
    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • P3 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions

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