ICT in Vietnamese education: Development and challenges

It is important that your abstract clearly states the purpose of your chapter and summarizes the content. Unprecedented developments in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) have currently pervaded educational settings the world over. Under the push towards innovative betterment and global connectivity, multiple forms of ICT, especially computers and the Internet, have been frantically implemented in educational systems in developed and developing countries alike. Prophecies of an educational evolution brought about by ICT, however, have not been fulfilled as there persists a great discordance between rhetoric and reality. Research into this field suggests that major challenges are often locally specific and strategic ICT approaches are to be made with contextual as well as socio-cultural considerations. This paper, therefore, aims mainly to investigate the development of ICT integration in Vietnamese education against the contemporary international landscape. It provides an overview of the current ICT-based educational advancement in Vietnam, followed by a detailed discussion of major challenges ushered in by the new-versus-old tensions and discourse conflicts. Practical implementations are also offered in an effort to actualize ICT promises in enhancing and transforming the educational system in Vietnam. This discussion could be relevant to any other developing countries, which have just embarked on and yet are committed to the process of evolutionizing their education via ICT. © 2012, IGI Global.