After years of economic destruction caused by the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese government issued the Open Door policy in 1986, making education reform the national top priority. Literature suggests that teachers are central to education reform as their response to the reform shapes its implementation and consequences (Vongalis-Macrow, 2007; Robinson, 2012; Schmidt and Datnow, 2005; Swanepoel, 2008). Meanwhile, in the context of globalisation, Western education ideologies have once again made their way back to the education system (Trinh, 2018). The Vietnamese government has set goals of education reform as ‘Internationalisation’ and ‘Global standards’ (Moet.gov.vn), allowing and encouraging the establishment of foreign-invested schools or so-called international schools. Through these reform policies where globalisation acts as a driving force, education in Vietnam is formed through the Neocolonial process privileging rich families who can afford them. This has shifted the landscape of education in the country with a division between public (public schools) and private sectors (international schools). Nevertheless, little is known about how this division in the education system affects the teaching profession: their working conditions, the expectations various stakeholders have of them, and the nature of their work in these parallel systems. My study begins to address this gap in research by exploring teachers' perceptions of their agency in these parallel public and private education systems. 

In order to do so, my thesis focuses on the following research questions: 

• How do teachers in public schools and international schools enact their agency at all levels (classroom, school, community, and education system)? 

• How do education reform policies as well as teachers’ personal and professional backgrounds and aspirations shape the agency enactment of teachers in public schools and international schools?  

• How does the teachers’ agency enactment in both public schools and international schools influence the implementation of Education Reform?  

This paper is inspired by the first chapter of my thesis which draws on the postcolonial theory (i.e, David, 2008; Crossley and Tikly, 2004; Rizvi, 2007) to provide the readers with the context of Vietnam education. This paper consists of two main parts: the context of education in Vietnam through a postcolonial lens and the context of public school teachers and international school teachers. By using thematic analysis of relevant studies as well as recent education reform policies, the paper argues that western influences are prevalent in the recent education reforms and as result in the education system. As such, Vietnam's education system has adopted Western education ideologies. Hence, this paper also argues that through the enactment of education reform policies where globalisation acts as a driving force, education in Vietnam is formed through the Neocolonial process privileging the postcolonial elites (defined here as the emerging middle class and upper-middle class). Consequently, literature tells us it has led to a distinction between public schools for the poor and international schools for those who can afford them (e.g, Wright, 2020; Bunnell, 2020; Kennedy and Power, 2010). Such division impacts the education system as a whole as well as everyone involved in it. Therefore, the second part of this paper provides the readers with the context of public school teachers and international school teachers in terms of policies, responsibilities, standards, workload, and payment. 

As stated in the abstract, this paper consists of two main parts: the context of Vietnam education through a postcolonial lens and the context of teachers in public schools and international schools. The first part - the context of education in Vietnam through a postcolonial lens - is analysed through thematic analysis. Literature is selected based on its relevance to the research focus. Some examples of keywords used when searching for literature are ‘postcolonial theory’, ‘postcolonial education’, ‘Vietnam education reform’, ‘Neocolonialism’, and ‘Vietnamese teachers’. The rationale for thematic analysis of relevant literature is that thematic analysis is flexible for complex data sets (Saunders et al., 2015) and allows the researchers to identify the key ideas which are closely related to the research objectives (Braun and Clarke, 2006). Therefore, the main themes are identified based on the main key themes of postcolonial theories. These themes are (1) colonial education and its legacies; (2) Education reform as a praxis of postcolonialism; (3) Neocolonial education as driven by globalisation; and (4) the formation of elitism through neocolonial education. Moreover, as there is a close relationship between postcolonialism, neocolonialism, and elitism tackled by former studies (i.e, Uzoigwe, 2019; Lahiri-Roy and Belford, 2021; Hill, 2006; Bunnell 2010), the third and the fourth themes emerged as key themes of the analysis. The second part - context of public school teachers and international school teachers - is analysed through analysis of education reform policies of Vietnam and thematic analysis of relevant studies. When it comes to selection, chosen policies must meet the following categories: (1) must be the most recent; (2) must be about education reform; and (3) must be about teaching profession after the issuing of education reform policies. Hence, education reform policies selected for analysis are: Circular 20/2018/TT-BGDĐT - Professional Standards for Teachers (Gov, 2018); Circular 01, 02, 03, 04/2021/TT-BGDĐT - payment of government officials (Gov, 2021); and Decree 86/2018/NĐ-CP- Regulations for international cooperation and investment in the Education sector (Gov, 2018). When analysing the policies, there are four main themes emerged: responsibilities, standards, workload, and payment. Relevant studies about Vietnamese teachers are also analysed based on these themes. Analysis of Decree 86 is also used to support the findings of the first part.

Early analysis of data revealed that French and American colonial education has shaped the Vietnam education system nowadays in terms of its structure and administration. Moreover, the results indicated that education reform is an evitable process of postcolonialism since the country has attempted to regain its national identity. Another finding that emerged from the findings is that by the establishment of foreign-invested schools or so-called international schools due to the notion of globalisation, education reform of the country is adopting Western education ideologies. Such a process is referred to as Neocolonialism which is the influence of developed countries on developing countries, namely in the fields of education through indirect political and economic control (Altbach, 1971). Moreover, it is anticipated that Neocolonial education has privileged the rich families (the emerging middle-class and upper-middle-class elites) who can afford international schools. This situation has created a division between the public and private sectors: public schools for common people and international schools for the elites. Early analysis of policies concerning teachers showed that the responsibilities, standards, workload, and payment of international school teachers are different from those of public school teachers. Particularly, teachers in public schools are strictly tied into policies with a long list of responsibilities, standards, and heavy workload while international school teachers are shown to have more freedom with a much higher payment. Hence, in the same country, there is a division between local teachers of the developing world and elite teachers in the Neoliberal world. Those differences may result in a gap in agency between teachers in public schools and those in international schools. Since this paper is developed from the first chapter of my PhD thesis, this paper not only provides readers with the landscape of Vietnam's postcolonial education reform but also states the significance of my whole thesis.

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