Access to Educational Services for Children from Migrant Worker Households in Vietnam's Industrial Zones

Abstract

Over the past 30 years, Vietnam's export processing zones and industrial parks have grown in number, drawing foreign laborers to places like Hanoi, Bac Ninh, Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, Binh Duong, and Long An. In such scenario, getting social services is extremely difficult for immigrant workers in industrial parks and processing zones for a variety of reasons. The availability of schooling for children from working-class and immigrant families is a common example. In addition to having a direct impact on the stability of immigrant workers' lives and the growth of enterprises in industrial parks and export processing zones, failing to address the learning needs of this particular set of children also lowers their quality of life. Impacting the Vietnamese government's ability to carry out its obligations under the 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Based on the synthesis and analysis of secondary data sources gathered in Bac Ninh and Hanoi, the article's main goal is to give a general picture of how immigrant working families currently ensure their children's right to an education. From there, some suggestions are made to address this issue in the future from the standpoint of social work.