The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has just announced a draft Decree stipulating policies on prioritizing enrollment and supporting learning for ethnic minority learners who are very small in number to gather opinions from agencies, organizations, and individuals.
The draft Decree is built to replace Decree No. 57/2017/ND-CP; amend and supplement a number of regulations of Decree No. 66/2025/ND-CP to ensure the synchronicity of the current policy system.
Expanding the scope of full, continuous and equal access to education
The draft aims to create conditions for learners of very small ethnic minorities to have access to full, continuous and equal education at all levels of education, expanding the target audience to include preschool children, high school students, vocational education students, continuing education students, students, graduate students and research students.
A prominent new point of the draft is to add learners at non-public educational institutions to enjoy learning support policies when they meet the conditions according to regulations. This ensures that learners' right to access policies does not depend on the type of educational institution, in line with the policy of socializing education.
This is considered a fundamental solution to develop human resources, contributing to the sustainable development of ethnic minority and mountainous areas.
Many policies prioritize enrollment throughout the learning process
According to the draft Decree, very small ethnic minority children are prioritized to study at public preschool education institutions; students are prioritized to boarding and semi-boarding ethnic minority general schools, boarding general schools in land border communes and suitable public general schools.
Secondary school graduates are directly admitted to many types of high schools, vocational education and continuing education; high school graduates are directly admitted to university preparatory schools, vocational education institutions, and are subjects of enrollment to study under the sent-in system.
For higher education, learners are entitled to the highest priority points according to enrollment regulations. The draft also stipulates priority policies in the enrollment of master's and doctoral degrees, including priority points, priority admission consideration or direct admission according to the regulations of the training institution; and at the same time allows the use of ethnic minority language certificates in some cases when postgraduate admission consideration. This is a new point compared to current policies.
Designing learning support policies for each level of education
The draft stipulates the level of learning support for each group of learners instead of applying it generally as before.
The support level is from 30% to 150% of the basic salary/person/month, corresponding to each level of education and training type. In which, students and postgraduate students of very small ethnic minorities are proposed to enjoy the highest support level of 150% of the basic salary per month, and are also prioritized for dormitory accommodation.
The draft stipulates the time to be enjoyed according to the actual school month but not exceeding the time of 9 months/school year or training program.
The draft also clearly stipulates the principle of enjoying only one policy of the same nature at the highest level to avoid overlapping with other support policies being implemented under current decrees and decisions.
Notably, the draft supplements regulations to promote the exploitation of data from the National Population Database and specialized databases. Accordingly, if the management agency has fully exploited the information, learners or families do not have to submit documents proving they are eligible for policies. Dossiers are only required to be submitted once throughout the learning process at the same educational institution, and can be submitted directly, by post or online on the National Public Service Portal.
