Development budget priorities

In literacy and numeracy tests given to elementary level students in the ASEAN region, Vietnam is now the topnotcher.

- 

The Philippines ranks just a level above Myanmar at the bottom of the standings. This is likely because when “Uncle Ho” (Ho Chi Minh) became president of his victorious country, he focused on investing in his people. In other words, education became a development budget priority.

In the United States, for a long time the world’s top-performing economy, Donald Trump has banned foreign students from obtaining student visas at Harvard University. One reason he cites is it has allegedly become a hotbed of communist sympathizers. Xi Jinping’s only daughter has been a student there, along with many descendants of China’s communist party leaders. Some Chinese students have gone to Stanford, Columbia, and other Ivy League schools.

Today, Vietnam and China are fast becoming dynamic economies, powered by its highly educated engineers and scientists who are leading their manufacturing industries. China, for one, is going deeply into high technology sectors including AI.