The Vietnam mathematics curriculum

The 2018 general education programme was promulgated by Thông tư 32/2018/TT-BGDĐT, dated 26 December 2018, signed by Minister Phùng Xuân Nhạ.1 Article 1 of this regulatory instrument states that the circular promulgates the general education programme, comprising the overall programme and the subject programmes for primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary levels.1 The mathematics programme is organised around three strands.2 These three strands are Number and Algebra, Geometry and Measurement, and Statistics and Probability.2 The text of the mathematics programme states that it integrates within the subject around those three strands and through practical and experiential activities in mathematics education.2

The mathematics programme sets a general objective to form and develop mathematical competence, năng lực toán học, which is made up of five core components: mathematical thinking and reasoning, mathematical modelling, mathematical problem solving, mathematical communication, and using the tools and means of learning mathematics.15 Concrete manifestations of mathematical competence appear in a table.15 The table also sets out required outcomes, yêu cầu cần đạt, for each schooling level.15 For thinking and reasoning in that table, a primary pupil carries out thinking operations at a simple level, and they describe the result of observing similarity and difference in familiar situations.15 At lower secondary level, a pupil carries out those operations and explains similarity and difference across many situations.15 An upper secondary pupil, who carries them out relatively fluently, detects similarity and difference in relatively complex situations and accounts for the result of observing.15

Annual teaching time for mathematics is 105 periods in Grade 1, 175 periods in Grades 2 to 5, 140 periods in Grades 6 to 9, and 105 periods in Grades 10 to 12.2 At the upper secondary level, covering Grades 10, 11, and 12, each grade has an additional 35 periods a year for elective topic studies.2

The programme states that mathematics is one of the subjects carrying a cluster of study topics, chuyên đề học tập, which serve deep differentiation, strengthen pupils' knowledge and practical skills, apply what has been learned to problems of practice, and answer career orientation requirements.15 A single study topic is 10 or 15 periods, and the cluster for one subject totals 35 periods a year.15 At each of Grades 10, 11 and 12 a pupil chooses clusters of three subjects.15 The Grade 10 cluster, which is titled around applying mathematics to interdisciplinary and practical problems, covers mathematical induction with the Newton binomial, systems of first-degree equations in three unknowns, and the three conics with their applications.15 The Grade 11 cluster, centred on practical problems connected with graphics and technical drawing, includes plane transformations, elements of technical drawing, and an introduction to elements of graph theory.15 For Grade 12, the cluster is structured around problems connected with economics and finance, and it covers discrete random variables with their characteristic numbers, applying mathematics to optimisation problems, and applying mathematics to problems related to finance.15

The programme was adopted from the 2020-2021 school year for Grade 1.1 Adoption proceeded from the 2021-2022 school year for Grades 2 and 6.1 The rollout continued into the 2022-2023 school year for Grades 3, 7, and 10.1 The adoption schedule progressed further during the 2023-2024 school year for Grades 4, 8, and 11.1 The final phase of the adoption schedule took effect from the 2024-2025 school year for Grades 5, 9, and 12.1

National Assembly Resolution 88/2014/QH13 establishes the legal foundation for textbook publishing under the curriculum.3 This resolution provides that textbook writing is socialised, meaning that several textbooks exist for each subject.3 Under the same resolution, the Ministry of Education and Training issues textbook evaluation criteria and approves textbooks for use on the basis of the national textbook appraisal council assessment.3 The resolution also provides that the ministry guides the selection of textbooks in schools.3

Kết nối tri thức với cuộc sống and Chân trời sáng tạo are textbook series of Nhà xuất bản Giáo dục Việt Nam.4 Mathematics titles in the Cánh Diều series are associated with the company VEPIC and with Nhà xuất bản Đại học Sư phạm.5 This holds for the mathematics titles checked and should not be generalised to every title in the series, because different Cánh Diều titles carry different partner publishers.5

Thông tư 27/2023/TT-BGDĐT, dated 28 December 2023, governs textbook selection in general education institutions.16 Effective 12 February 2024, it replaced Thông tư 25/2020/TT-BGDĐT of 26 August 2020, under which the provincial People's Committee established the selection council.16 Its two selection criteria are suitability to the socio-economic characteristics of the locality and suitability to the conditions for organising teaching and learning at the institution.16

Under Thông tư 27/2023, the selection council is established by the head of the institution and assists that head in organising the selection.16 Each institution forms one council, and an institution with several levels of schooling forms one for each level.16 Membership is an odd number and at least 11 people, or at least 5 for an institution of fewer than 10 classes, including the head, deputy head, subject group leaders, a teacher representative, and a representative of the parents' board.16 Thông tư 10/2025/TT-BGDĐT, in force from 1 July 2025, amended the circular so an institution sends its selection file to the commune People's Committee for primary and lower secondary levels, and to the provincial Department of Education and Training for upper secondary level.17

From 2025 candidates sit four subjects in the graduation examination, consisting of two compulsory subjects, which are Literature and Mathematics, and two chosen by the candidate.6 This policy is recorded in a source dated 16 February 2025.6 Quyết định 764/QĐ-BGDĐT, issued on 8 March 2024, sets the mathematics paper at 90 minutes and 22 questions divided into three parts.7 The first part comprises 12 multiple-choice questions, the second 4 true-or-false questions, and the third 6 short-answer questions.7

The Ministry Quality Management Department, writing on 28 June 2025, stated that the 2025 examination was the first whose papers were built to the new general education programme, aimed at assessing the competencies and qualities of candidates.8 Writing on 15 June 2026, the same department stated that the 2026 examination took place on 11 and 12 June.9 An initial assessment reported by the department indicated that the papers followed the 2018 general education programme and the published structure and format.9

Thông tư 24/2024/TT-BGDĐT, dated 24 December 2024 and in force from 8 February 2025, issued the regulation for the upper secondary graduation examination.18 It provides that from 2026 onward the Ministry of Education and Training runs the examination with a single type of examination paper.18 The same regulation organises the examination as three sittings, consisting of one sitting for Literature, one sitting for Mathematics, and one sitting for the elective paper covering two subjects.18 The Quality Management Department reported that 1,223,776 candidates registered for the 2026 examination, 61,642 more candidates than in 2025, and that 1,213,695 of those registered candidates sat it, a rate of 99.18 per cent.9 For the 2025 examination, the same department reported 1,165,289 registration files.8

Thông tư 22/2021/TT-BGDĐT, which was issued 20 July 2021 and took effect 5 September 2021, governs lower and upper secondary pupil assessment.20 It assesses by comment alone physical education, arts, music, fine arts, local educational content, and experiential and career-orientation activity, recording the result at one of two levels, Đạt or Chưa đạt.19 Every other subject in the 2018 general education programme, which includes mathematics, is assessed by comment combined with marks on a scale of 10, and a different scale must be converted to it.19

Regular assessment under the circular is carried out through question and answer, writing, presentation, practical work, experiment, and learning products.19 The number of regular assessment marks a subject carries in a term follows its annual teaching time: a subject of 35 periods a year carries 2, a subject of more than 35 and up to 70 periods carries 3, and a subject of more than 70 periods carries 4.19 Each such subject carries one mid-term mark and one end-of-term mark in every term.19 Periodic assessment is not applied to the cluster of study topics.19

The General Statistics Office reports monthly income per person in 2024 at 5.4 million đồng nationally, 6.9 million đồng in urban areas, and 4.5 million đồng in rural areas.10 The OECD Economic Surveys: Viet Nam 2025 states that "the wealthiest families spend on average 5.6 times more than the poorest on additional courses outside the school system, a difference that extends to 10 times more in secondary school".11 The OECD attributes that finding to the World Bank in 2016.11 In the 2024-2025 school year, Vietnam had 18.6 million general education pupils, comprising 8.75 million in primary, 6.7 million in lower secondary, and 3.1 million in upper secondary.12 An earlier release in December 2024 gave more than 18.5 million pupils, with the figures coming from different releases and this page using the July 2025 release.12 By VietAlpha's own published figure, premium one-to-one examination preparation in Vietnam can cost up to 7.2 million đồng a month for a single subject.

Supplementary teaching is regulated by Thông tư 29/2024/TT-BGDĐT, which was issued on 30 December 2024 and took effect on 14 February 2025.13 This circular provides that extra teaching is not organised for primary pupils, except for enrichment in the arts, physical education and sport, and life skills.13 A teacher working in a school may not give paid extra teaching outside the school to pupils that the school has assigned them to teach.13 Teachers at public schools may not manage or run extra teaching outside the school.13 Extra teaching inside a school may not charge pupils, and is limited to three groups.14 These three groups are pupils whose end-of-term result in the subject was below the required level, pupils selected by the school for advanced coaching, and final-year pupils who volunteer for entrance or graduation examination revision.14 Paid tutoring outside a school must register as a business under the law.14

The mathematics programme sets out its content in three strands, which are Number and Algebra, Geometry and Measurement, and Statistics and Probability.2 Each grade carries a stated number of teaching periods.2 During its July 2026 search, VietAlpha found no openly published Vietnamese-language mathematics datasets whose paper or card states alignment to this programme, and none with labelling at the level of a curriculum unit.

A structure like the one in the mathematics programme is what a per-item label would refer to. The lab operates a production pipeline named Cadmus, which produces structured, verified, curriculum-tagged records across eleven stages. LumiToán is free, and by the lab's own count more than 10,000 students use it each month as of mid-2026.

Mathematics research in Vietnam is carried out by institutes, universities and a national programme, and it is a separate subject from school teaching, so the lab keeps a separate page on it. The lab also studies the older written record, which belongs to the history of Vietnamese mathematics.