BRIEF OVERVIEW OF CHINESE LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY IN VIETNAM IN 1874-1906

Abstract

The priority of French colonial government after obtained control over Vietnam was to destroy Confucianism and replace it with an education to serve their purposes. However, Chinese characters in the period of the 19th and early 20th centuries have not been forgotten. Nevertheless, Vietnamese researchers only focused on analyzing the educational policies of the French colonialists towards the French language, modern Vietnamese language and did not analyze the policies related to Chinese characters in depth. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to show the difference in the policy of education for Chinese characters in the North, Middle and South of Vietnam, which were implemented by the French colonial government before 1906. This article applied the method of data collection and processing of effected decisions and resolutions at that moment and came to the conclusion. First, the priority policy of France colonial was still "removal of Chinese", but in the South of Vietnam, the colonial government did not understand that "haste makes waste", leading to the failure before 1906. Second, after the failure, the French colonial learned from their mistake, from that generated appropriate policies of "removing" Confucianism and gradually introduced French and modern Vietnamese language into our people's lives. This study not only gives readers an overview of the French colonialist's policy towards Vietnamese Confucian education at that time, but also a premise for future studies.