Table 4 shows both gross and net enrolment rates in 1993 and 1998, Vietnam had achieved a quite equal enrolment in basic education for both girls and boys using NERs though gender gap was slightly larger at upper secondary level. It is interesting that if one use GER instead of NER, then the whole picture changes significantly. GERs for girls were lower than those for boys at all levels, and much lower at the upper secondary level. For example, at the primary level, girls' NER was 99 percent of that of boys, while girls' GER was only 93 percent of boys' GER. The difference is clearer at upper secondary level. This implies that school-age boys and girls had equal opportunity to attend basic education. The fact that boys repeated classes more often than girls is one the reasons for lower percentage of GER for girls as compared to those for boys. However, it may also imply that over-aged girls were less likely to stay or go back to school than over-aged boys. This is somewhat consistent with findings from "participatory poverty assessments" done in Vietnam that girls contend with a complex mix of barriers to their right to formal education. For example, when decisions to send children to school are weighted against labor contributions, girls are often the last to be sent to school, and the first to be withdrawn. Similarly, some parents still consider that an investment in a daughter's education, especially at higher levels will be lost when she marries into another family. Gender equality for all can only be achieved and maintained by the conscious integration of gender issues within all policies, strategies and practices focused on addressing educational disadvantage, especially at higher level of education.

Table 4: Girls' enrolment rate as a percentage of boys' enrolment rate by education level

||1993|1998|
|---|---|---|
|NetEnrollmentRates|||
|prinary|101|99|
|lower secondary|93|101|
|upper secondary|73|91|
|Gross EnrollmentRates|||
|primary|96|93|
|lower secondary|80|96|
|uppersecondary|62|82|

# _Ethnic Groups Differences_

Despite recent improvements, ethnic minorities experience a much lower level of net enrolment in all levels of education compared with the majority Kinh and Chinese. In 1998, only 82% of ethnic minority children of primary school-age were enrolled in primary school compared to 93% of majority children. At the lower secondary level, the disparity is much more pronounced: in the same year, the lower secondary NER was only 37% for minority children compared to 66% for the majority. Low participation rates mean that approximately 0.4 million of the 2.8 million minority children aged 6-14 were not enrolled in school. Of these, 0.3 million were ethnic girls. Many ethnic minority girls are disadvantaged by a combination of late enrolment in grade 1 (if they enrol at all) and a tradition of early marriage. Minority people's concentration in the Northern Uplands, the Central Highland and the Mekong Delta means that they also experience the disadvantages found more generally in these locations.

Fortunately, ethnic minority children experienced a much larger improvement in enrolments in primary and lower secondary schools over five year period from 1992-93 to 19976