According to the Ministry of Health, only more than one in 10 schools nationwide have swimming pools, less than half of students know how to swim, and on average each school has only 0.57 teachers certified to teach swimming.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Tri Thuc - Deputy Minister of Health - said that in the past time, the Ministry of Health, together with ministries, branches, localities and international organizations such as WHO, CTFK, have coordinated to implement the Program on preventing and combating child injuries for the period 2021-2030 and the Project on preventing and combating child drowning for the period 2018-2025, achieving many positive results.
However, according to the Deputy Minister, Vietnam still faces many challenges when it has a dense network of rivers, long coastlines, and is affected by climate change and natural disasters. Meanwhile, the awareness of a part of the population, the supervision of families and safe survival skills in the water environment of children, especially in rural, remote and isolated areas, are still limited.
The Ministry of Health will continue to be the focal agency, closely coordinating with ministries, branches, localities and international organizations in the coming time" - Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Tri Thuc emphasized, and at the same time proposed to strengthen inter-sectoral coordination, innovate communication and comprehensively evaluate results to build solutions for the 2026-2030 period.
According to representatives of the Department of Students - Ministry of Education and Training, as of June 15, 2026, the whole country has 2,919/25,090 schools with swimming pools, equivalent to 11.64%; the rate of students who know how to swim reached 41.01%; on average, each school has only 0.57 teachers certified to teach swimming.
The main reason is limited funding for infrastructure investment and socialized resources, especially in remote and isolated areas.
The Ministry of Education and Training said that the Ministry has advised the Prime Minister to issue a Program to strengthen knowledge and skills education on drowning prevention and control for students in the period 2025-2035, and at the same time for the first time issued a program and unified safe swimming teaching materials nationwide.
Ms. Meheret Melles-Brewer, Head of Environment and Healthy Living Group, World Health Organization (WHO) in Vietnam, said that preventing and combating child drowning is not only a health issue but also related to education, child protection, disaster response and community development.
According to her, clearly assigning roles and sharing responsibilities between sectors is an important condition to ensure that no children are left behind in the context of climate change and urbanization increasing the risk of drowning.
From practical implementation, MSc. Doan Thi Thu Huyen, representative of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) in Vietnam, proposed integrating the goal of preventing and combating drowning into the local socio-economic development plan; building unified standards for safe swimming teaching; increasing investment in facilities, especially in remote and isolated areas; and establishing an effective post-training monitoring mechanism.
From a research perspective, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pham Viet Cuong, Center for Policy Research and Trauma Prevention, University of Public Health - said that children's safe swimming skills can decline by nearly 50% after six months if not practiced regularly.
He proposed to ensure a stable source of funding, integrate swimming lessons into the official education program, expand the mobile swimming pool model and build a data system to serve intervention work.
