In comparison with other developing countries, Việt Nam's population enjoys a relatively high standard of education.

Whilst Confucian-style higher education in Việt Nam may be traced back to the 11th century, the modern pattern of universal primary, secondary and tertiary education has a relatively short history of development. The 1917 Law on Education passed by the French colonial government abolished the Confucian education system and replaced it with an education system modelled loosely on that of France. However, that new system remained fundamentally elitist, reaching only an estimated three per cent of the indigenous population and functioning primarily as a means of training civil servants for colonial service throughout French Indochina.

In the wake of the August Revolution of 1945, and especially after the victory in the war of resistance against the French in 1954, the new government was faced with an illiteracy rate of over 85 per cent of the Vietnamese population and accordingly resolved to make education a priority. The education reforms of 1945 and 1950 established a basic system of national education comprising pre-school programmes, primary and secondary schools, popular education for adults and a network of colleges and universities. Similar reforms were also undertaken between 1945 and 1975 by the Sài Gòn regime. In the wake of Reunification primary and secondary schools were brought under the control of the Ministry of Education and Training, whilst colleges and universities were brought under the management of the Ministry of Higher Education; since that time a series of further measures have been enacted by central government in conjunction with provincial and municipal authorities to create a fully-integrated national education system.

In addition to general secondary schools, Việt Nam also has just under 300 secondary vocational schools which allow specialisation in such fields as industry, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, economics, teacher training, medicine, gymnastics and sports and culture and arts.

College or university education normally commences at 18 years of age. There are currently 110 public higher education institutions in Việt Nam, including 23 colleges (trường cao đẳng) and 27 universities (trường đại học, including five state Universities, Hà Nội National University, Hồ Chí Minh City National University, the University of Huế, the University of Thái Nguyên, the University of Đà Lạt). Numerous semi-public and private universities and colleges have also been established in recent years; Hồ Chí Minh City, Việt Nam's centre for science and technology, now has 14 such institutions, accounting for around 30 per cent of the country's total. The students attending these schools make up approximately 18 per cent of the total number of university students nationwide.

Since đổi mới secondary vocational and tertiary education are no longer free, but there is stiff competition through examination for the limited number of places. A limited number of scholarships is available for gifted students.

In the early years of the 21st century the Vietnamese education system continues to face many challenges, including poor infrastructure, lack of equipment and teaching materials, low wages precipitating an acute shortage of skilled teachers and academic staff, and a relatively poor linkage of higher education with research, production and employment. However, against a background of such overwhelming difficulty the achievements of the last half century have been impressive. Official figures currently put Việt Nam's literacy rate at between 78 and 84 per cent, with 97 per cent of school-age children at school, 99 per cent of 6-year-olds in first grade, 90 per cent of 11-year-olds graduating from primary school and 98.5 per cent of children aged 14 completing junior secondary education. A pioneering new bilingual primary education programme implemented in selected mountainous regions to create greater opportunities for ethnic minority children has been hailed as a model of educational reform in the region and is currently being considered by other countries such as Thailand, India, Laos, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. Since the early 1990s too, the quality of university graduates has improved significantly and the reputation of many of the country's numerous research institutions has become firmly established overseas.