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The story of Vietnam’s education together with its formulae for success and remaining issues have been much researched. However, there is a rather mysterious group of institutions in the country’s education system that is much less explored yet in close relation to its top ranking in international academic competitions: trường chuyên (specialization schools for the gifted, or in short, gifted schools). Through reviewing government legal documents and relevant reports, this article sketches the overview picture of various fundamental aspects of gifted education in Vietnam, including the evolution history, merits, limitations, and recommendations to improve the system quality. The contribution and shortcomings of this most prestigious group of schools will be examined given the prioritized investment from the Government, current societal context and demands in Vietnam and across the world, alongside most recent global movements in the educational domain.

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This chapter describes a case study of the university’s attempts to support general education institutions through the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Applying the School-Based Mental Health Collaboration, faculties from the University of Education, Vietnam National University Hanoi took a whole-school approach to promote mental health services for students all over the country via various channels. With multiple training webinars on studying and coping skills during social distancing periods for students, classroom consultation skills for teachers, initiatives from the university attracted remarkable responses from the community. Suggestions to improve the effectiveness and sustainability of the efforts, including digitalization consideration, targeting and effective mobilization of resources, dissemination of learning materials, and long-term planning, are discussed in the last half of the chapter, after reviewing and evaluating their impact and potential.

This article discusses determinant factors of creative thinking skills in students, including demographic features, within and out-of-school experiences, digital usage and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) skills. Structural equated model constructed from 1181 observations from Vietnamese secondary students reveals that students’ digital usage and ICT skills, together with experiences within and outside school are strong predictors of their creativity levels. Demographic features, academic performance and after-school tuition are found insignificant to school learners’ creative abilities. The results provide significant insights into the current situation of skills education and policy implications to improve instructional quality of Vietnam’s education system and other nations with similar sociocultural contexts.   Received: 11 November 2021 / Accepted: 14 December 2021 / Published: 5 March 2022