Internationalization of the curriculum: perspectives on cultural content in international high schools in Vietnam

The present study examines the advantages and disadvantages of bringing in the Westernized curriculum into the Vietnamese education systems. Reports by teachers and high school graduates in two international schooling system in Vietnam -- Western-run international high schools (IHS) and Vietnamese-run IHS -- helped to discover the perspectives on cultural content in international high schools. The present study used in-depth interviews to gather participants’ viewpoints without influencing them about the perceived lack of cultural content in the western curriculum. With past literature considering international education in non-Western parts of the world as neocolonialism, it was important for the author of the present paper to explore this notion further (through an impartial inquiry into both pros and cons of international education), and to identify possible methods to decolonize education in Asia in general, and in Vietnam in particular.