ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the ways in which three key institutions–the educational system, the research establishment, and the mass media–have reacted to economic, social and cultural pressures coming from many different directions. Entire higher education establishments were outfitted with Soviet equipment, supplies, and library collections. There has been a modest increase in field investigations and survey research by Vietnamese social scientists. Some research institutes have initiated periodicals aimed at the general public, presumably hoping to make a profit as well as to demonstrate practical relevance. From 1986, the Vietnam Communist Party relaxed its control on the introduction of foreign information to Vietnam as well as circulation of information within the country. Professor Phan Dinh Dieu, who has long argued that information is becoming the most important property of society, and that democracy is not only a political right but a means of expanding the country's intellectual reservoir, has refused to alter his position under criticism.
