Assessing the rights to education of children with disabilities in Vietnam. A Vietnamese Child-Focused Budget Study

This document has been produced as part of an international project about the development of methods for budget analysis in seven of the countries participating in Save the Children Sweden programmes: Ethiopia, El Salvador, Peru, South Africa, Sweden, Vietnam, and the West Bank and Gaza. Each country has selected the subject of its budget study on the basis of specific national conditions.

 This report says that despite high levels of economic growth, which averaged approximately 7.5% per year during the last decade, Vietnam is still a very poor country with an annual GDP close to BUSD 27, or about USD 350 per head. This fact illustrates the serious financial constraint on many social programs, which also includes commitments to children, as specified by the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and other development targets of the Government of Vietnam.

The main objective of this study is to examine the budget for primary education at district level with emphasis on budget expenditure on education for children with disabilities (CWD). The study also examines utilisation of budget and other financial resources for CWD in some primary schools that have inclusive education classes for CWD. The study encompasses the following broad objectives: • To make children, including CWD, more visible in policies and decision- making processes, especially those related to budget and resource allocation in Vietnam; • To collect information and details on the process and structure of education budgets at district level, with focus on expenditure on inclusive education for CWD; • To identify and clarify the link between budget and policies related to children’s (including CWD) rights to education.

Read here the summaries of the eight child-focused budget studies.