Forecasting the Number of Children and Students Attending to School in Vietnam – The Interest in Gender Difference

Gender is considered as one of the important factors influencing the development of society, relating to many fields such as economy, politics, culture, education, etc. For the past years, Vietnam has actively promoted the gender equality, including the adjustment of the gender gap between the number of the children born throughout the years. However, the forecast results of the number of the children and students attending to school in Vietnam showed that there was quite large gender gap between boys and girls. This leads to the imbalance of gender; as a result, the assurance of the conditions for the education development becomes a challenge. Based on the analysis of the forecast results, the paper mentioned the responsibility of the education managers on the issue of the gender gap in the development of education and sustainable development.


Introduction
Gender is the issue which Vietnamese Government always gives special concerns to and implement many the important policies to bring the equality for all people, all gender and simultanously the government communicates and educates the humanity to change the conception, thinking on gender equity rights for men and women (Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), 2007;Vietnamese Communist, 2011;. Therefore, the gender equality in Vietnam has developed strongly (Thinh, 2008). However, in fact, the situation of unequality is still happening in number of the different forms.
In Vietnam, in fact, the gender inequality can be found in some important social fields, women still are in the pressure of works, income, and discriminations, etc. One of the obvious problems causing the gender inequality is bearing girls or boys becomes the important concern of many families (Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), 2013a;2013b). This conception of the Vietnamese is much influenced by Confucian culture -"gender prejudice", which is deeply rooted in the minds of many Vietnamese family generations (Thinh, 2008). Therefore, the large majority of the today Vietnamese families now consider the birth of boys very important to them, so they find all the solutions to have "religious grandchildren" to "maintain the continuity of a family line". Moreover, the Vietnamese also focus on the year of birth with the thought that this will bring good luck, good fortune home, helping the children born with a rich and prosperous fate (Chi and Loc, 2005). These Asian cultural ideologies exist for a long time and still strongly dominate the cultural and spiritual life of the Vietnamese and as a result, it influnces the birth rate on the gender aspect. In the paper named Sex preferences and fertility in South Korea during the year of the horse (Lee and Paik, 2006), the author referred to the same viewpoint that since ancient times, people of the East Asian countries such as China, Japan and Korea believed that the fate of the born children would be associated with the Chinese Zodiac designations representing for the years, and the fate of the female children born in the Horse year would be much affected in their life and career when they grew up as well as there was significant influence on the birth rate of the female children in the countries in the Horse year.
Vietnam is the country in Asia with the interesting cultural characteristics. These characteristics have fairly strong influence on the psychological issues which consists of giving birth and children education. Gender is considered as one of the important factors affecting the development of society and education. According to author Nguyen Anh Hong, the Vietnamese have long been wrong in believing that the boys born on the 1st of the lunar month and the girls on the full moon day (15th of the lunar month) are "difficult to bring up" and have uncommon temper (VNExpress, 2012). Or according to Doan Phu (Center for Human Potential Research), the Vietnamese personalities are influenced by the religion beliefs that exist for thousands of years in Vietnam, especially in the matter of giving birth (VNExpress, 2012). He analyzed that the dates as the 1st and 15th of the lunar month were still considered as the dates of gods. The children who born on these dates are considered as "fortune", so people are afraid if the children are not carefully welcomed and cared, they will break into the gods. As a result, the children will leave their parents (difficult to bring up). Therefore, they welcome these children with the attitudes that are quite different from the other children born on other days and nights.
It is possible to assert that the human resource development for the country as well as gender inequality play a very important role in developing human resource. One of the tasks to perform is forecasting the number of the children attending to school. This is not only required for the preschool childrenpreschool educationbut also for all student ages, which need to be forecasted more actively and regularly. Moreover, the forecast of the number of the children and the students attending to school focusing on the gender will help give the exact arguments as well as the solutions for the advanced and equal educational development. These forecasting results will be the important basis for the orientation of human resource, the recommendation of the teacher staff development policies meeting the educational needs in practice. Besides, these findings will help give the reflection on the influence degree of the conceptions, cultural ideologies in having children in Vietnam, making certain contribution to the change of the outdated and old viewpoints and the development of the civilized and modern society.

Theoretical Framework
The object of the educational forecast is the national education system of a country, a province or city with the characteristics as development scale, type structure, education and training quality, pedagogical organization. This object is studied, forecasted from many aspects, constituents forecasted by many different sciences such as sociology (Thinh, 2008), demography (Toan, 2013), economics (Loc, 2010, pedagogics (Thanh, 2007), psychology (Son, 2013), etc.
The educational forecast is significant in orienting, establishing the scientific basis for determining the direction, duties and major objectives of the education and training. The educational forecast is the basis for the scientific recommendations and the possible status relevant to education, future forecast about the different ways, deaadlines to achieve that future status which education needs or wants to orient (Long, 2013).
The educational forecast is the determination of the future status of the educational system with certain probability of the orientation, as the scientific basis for determining the direction, functions and major objectives of education and training. The object of the education and training forecast is the national education system of a country, a province with the features of development scale, structure of type, school network, teacher staff, education quality, pedagogical organization (Hien et al., 2013).
In this study task, we supposed that the term "education forecast" encompasses full of the basis implications of the forecast and places it in the specific activity of people: the education. The educational forecast is analyzed on many aspects such as the forecast of the number of the children and the students attending to school, educational needs according to the society development. The educational forecast is based on socio-economy relationship, environment and the changes of the surrounding conditions. In short, educational forecast is the determination of the future status of the educational system with certain probability. Therefore, the educational forecast is the important basis for human resources in education. The forecasting of the number of the children or the students attendings to school is one of the basic contents of the the educational forecast.

Study Design
The studies on the forecasting of the number of the children and students attending to school drawed much attention from many organizations, scientists in Vietnam for years. Author Hong established the basic contents on the relationship between population and education of Ho Chi Minh City to direct the solutions responding to the current status as well as the future development roadmap (Hong, 1996). Or the investigations on Vietnamese education were carried out for the mission of population and household census in Vietnam in the following years: 2002 -2004, 2008 -2009, etc. However, the studies about the influence of gender issue on the number of the children and students attending to school have not been placed in the study results of the educational forecast.
To solve the above forecast problem, firstly, it is necessary to collect data of population and the population forecast according to the variation model and analyzed the data based on each 5-years period with the determined process. Next, establishing the forecast criteria aims to do the additional forecast in the process of the forecast analyzes the forecast data.
-Criterion 1: The number of the students, children per teacher; -Criterion 2: Natural variation and variation based on human resource: retired age, work transferquit.
-Criterion 3: Analysing and comparing the number of the children, female and male students by each level, grade and appropriate time frame. Using the software SPSS version 20.0 to process statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean, which could show us the variations and differences in quantity of the number of children and students, to comment the collected data. The results and discussions are based on this quantitive collected data.

The Overall Forecast Results of the Number of the Children and the Students Attending to School
Due to the forecasting time from June 2017 to June 2018, it is necessary to base on the actual data of the year 2010 and 2015. Considering the number of the students of the whole country, the number of the children and students attending to school in 2015 reduced by 4% with 995,243 children compared to 2010. Forecasting for the next 15 years from 2015 to 2030, the number of the children and students going to school each year all over the country tends to increase gradually with the average rate of 2.12%/ 5 years, then slightly decreases at 1.1% compared to 2030 and 2035. However, at each school age, there was a relatively complex change shown in table 1. The forecast results on the population of the whole country showed that the number of the kindergarten children all over the country strongly increased from 2010 to 2020 and tended to decrease immediately right after in 2025, 2035. The number of the kindergarten children in 2030 reveals the increase compared to 2025, but it not significantly.
The results also showed that the number of the preschool children increased gradually to 2020, 2025 and then stopped and gradually decreased in 2030 and 2035 but it was not significant. Based on the current status of the number of the preschool teachers, the current rate of the natural variation and the scale of the preschool teacher education, the number of the preschool teachers was able to be short of the number of the teachers needed for the preschool in the period 2017 -2027 as predicted by Huynh Van Son. Accordingly, for the 10-years forecast period, during the first 6 years, the number of the preschool teachers will be short of over 20,000 teachers. Then, in the following 4 years, the number will decrease under 20,000 teachers (Son, 2013). Particularly, for the years that are considered as the good years by the Vietnamese people's conception such as 2009, 2012, 2022, 2024, etc. (Loc and Loan, 2010. The number of the preschool children increased by 3% -6% compared to the previous years. This proved the Vietnamese people's culture, psychology had a certain influence on their choice of age birth and year birth. Moreover, the problem of the children increase can be also found in the group of children that many families in Vietnam have violated many times in the children care, in which the children violence is the clear proof. These results compared to the data of the first 6 months of the year 2018 by Ministry of Public Security showed that there were 720 cases of the child abuse all over the country, in which the child sexual abuse included 573 cases, accounting for 79.5% of all the child abuse cases (Ministry of Labour Invalids and Social Affairs, 2017). The statistic data by Ministry of Labour, War invalids and Social Affairs also said that Vietnam had about 2,000 children found abused every year. In fact, these findings mainly comed from the violent behaviour, violent cases that found abuse the children as criminal offence, so the data was just "the floating part of the iceberg". More worryingly, 1 out of 4 female children was abused and violated; 1 out of 6 mail children was abused and violated (Vietnamese Financial Times, 2018). This data showed the gender unequality existing in our country, which the authority needs to consider to give the comprehensive solutions for their support and problem solving.
All over the country, the primary students increased gradually to 2025 and then insginificantly decreased in 2030 and 2035. The number of the secondary school students decreased right immediately in 2015 compared to 2010, but it gradually increased until 2030. The number of the high school students decreased significantly in 2015 compared to 2010; however, this number increased gradually and continuously to 2035 as forcasted. If 2015 was considered to examine the forecast, each year, the number of the high school students increased approximately from 80,000 to 200,000 students. This revealed that the need of the high school teacher as well as the conditions for the education development need to be considered and responded to the forecast need on the number of the high school students attending to school by the appropriate conversion way.
The data in table 1 showed that the most remarkable finding was the forecast of the next 10 yearsat least to 2025. The finding said that the number of the students, especially for the preschool and primary students, increased gradually for years. For the multidimentional perspective, some indicators were put into consideration as the number of the children going to school, the number of the teachers of the relevant conditions of Vietnam in the correlation with some top education developed countries in Asia such as Korea, Singapore -the countries that have the highest Pisa test results in the world (Potekhina et al., 2016) showed that: Firstly, because of the increasing decline of the birth rate, the ratio of the students/teacher of these countries is very low. This is the problem that Vietnam needs to care and has to have the drastic action to change for the education development and this is one of the challenges to be addressed for the quality assurance. This issue relates to the regulation of the number of the students/class; the norm of the teachers in the system; salary, allowances, etc. and these must be solved by the relevant ministries including Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Finance, and Ministry of Education and Training, etc.
Secondly, the "rigid" consideration of the teacher norm can make the beginning classes of each school level overloaded at risk and the following classes will not be able to be fully exploited their potential. This also causes the imbalance in the number of the children among grades if the career and labour quality is still mainly evaluated based on the number of the students, children as at present.
Third, the substitute teacher force as well as the other conditions for the education development such as infrastructure, classrooms, teaching aids, facilities, etc. are at risk of causing many problems, especially in the years the number of the children and the students increased by more than 5% throughout the country. This is the problem to be addressed from the pschological aspect and education communication, in particularly addressing the issue of the reproductive health education and gender education for the community.

Forecasting the Number of the Children and Students Attending to School by Gender
The forecast results of the number of the children and students attending to school in the whole country which analysed with gender is also the data to be considered. The number of the children and students attending to school should be recognized in this aspect if the issue gender "respect" is interested in. The integration of the gender equality and the nationality into education can also lead to the consideration of the number of the girls and the female students going to school in the forecast. The study by Dollar and Gatti (1999) pointed out that the gender unequality reduced the average quality of human resource in society and had a negative influence on the economic development. This is because it limits the education's grey matter resource, which makes women not learn enough. Based on the empirical evidence, the study revealed the gender gap in education reduced the economic development. King and Hill (1993) as well as Knowles et al. (2002), used the Solow growth model and gave the conclusion that the gender gap in education had a statistically significant and negative impact on the gross domestic product (GDP). Dollar and Gatti (1999), Forbes (2000), Yamarik and Ghosh (2003), Appiah andMcMahon (2002), andKlasen (2002) investigated the effect of the gender gap on the economic development later. They also found out the previous research results of Barro and Lee (1994), showing that women's educational background was able to have a negative impact on the economic development (Cavalcanti and Tavares, 2016). This is the basis for consideration when Vietnam wants to promote the gender equality issue towards globalization as today. Table-2. Showed that the number of the male children at the school age was higher than that of the female children with the average rate of 3% to 5%/ 5 years of the total children going to school. It is forecasted that this difference tended to increase gradually from 2010 to 2025, then there was a sign of slowing down slightly from 2030 to 2035. The most difference occurred in the year 2025 with about 1,374,568 students and the least difference was in 2015 with about 853,613 students. The results showed the correspondence with the findings published by the General Department of Population and Family Planning (Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), 2012). If in 2000, the sexual ratio in Vietnam was 106,2 booys/ 100 girls, the ratio increased up to 112,8 boys/ 100 girls in 2015 (Son, 2013). If compared with the data of some countries in the region. In India, in 2011 the difference was 128 boys/100 girls; in China, 118,1 boys/100 girls in 2011; in Korea, the ratio was 106,9 boys/100 girls; the difference between boys and girls in Vietnam was quite high. The gender imbalance is not common in the countries as Thailand, Indonesia or the Phillipines; this is partly because these countries have the culture of valuing women (Economic Analysis, 2016). For example, according to World Economic Forum (WEF) report on the Global Gender Gap Index in 2018, the Philippines becomes the best gender equality country in Asia. Although this archipelago country losed the three positions since the last year global report, mostly due to the effective decline in salary equality of the index report for the same job, it had contribution with 79% of it's total gender gap. The Philippines has completely excluded the gap between the genders in education level, but it has reopened the gender gap in health (The New Magazine, 2018). As a results, it can be seen that the cultural factors, especially beliefs and religions strongly dominated and deeply the gender ratio in the child birth of Asians, which Vietnam is the typical country.
The data of the female students at the school age showed that there was the decline in number in 2015 with the average rate of 4.56% compared to 2010, corresponding to about 570,587 students. For the next 15 years (from 2015 -2030), the number of the female students going to school tended to increase gradually with the average rate of 1.8%/ 5 years, then slightly decreased at 0.38% compared to 2030 and 2035.
For 10 years from 2010 -2020, the number of the kindergarten aged female children increased gradually with the average rate of about 3%/ 5 years. However, for the next 15 years, there has been a fairly erratic fluctuation in the number of the female children at this age. In particular, it is forecasted that until 2025, the number of the children will decrease at the rate of 7.87% compared to 2020, then increase at 6.29% in 2030 compared to 2025, and decrease with the rate of 5.38 compared to 2025 and 2030. This showed that the preparation of the preschool teacher staff, the kindergarten teacher staff is very important aiming to meet the fluctuation of the number of the children going to school within the range of 10% as forecasted. This is one of the basis for the policy makers, the educational managers to consider when developing the regulations, policies, planning or solving the problems of the preschool teachers and the kindergarten teachers in particular. At present, the development of the preschool education in the non-public section is one of the solutions to be taken account of. However, the issue of educational quality assurance and accreditation in this basic group consists of the requirements to be done systematically and scientifically as At the age of preschool, the number of the female children had the gradually increasing tendency with the average rate of 2.47%/ 5-years from 2010 to 2025. Then this number was reduced with the rate of 3.6% compared to 2025 and 2030 and increased with the rate of 3.3% compared to 2030 and in 2035 according to natural variation.
It is forecasted for 15 years from 2010 -2025 that the number of the female students at the age of primary school will increase gradually with the average rate of 2.75%/ 5 years, about 92,143 students/ 5 years. However, the increasing tendency of the number of these students will be interrupted in 2030 when the number of the female students at this school level decreased at the rate of 1.91% compared to 2025, then slightly increased at 0.29%, accounting for 10,126 students compared to 2030 and 2025. This variation also happened in the correspondence to the general variation of the whole population and there were no unexpected changes.
At secondary school level, the number of the female students attending to school in 2015 decreased at 5.55% compared to 2010. For 15 years from 2015 to 2030, it is forecasted that the number of the students had the gradual increase with the average rate 3.14%/ 5 years, about 83,922 students/ 5 years. However, until 2035, the number of the female students at this school level will slightly decrease at 3.04% compared to 2030.
It is worth noting that there was a strong decrease in the number of the female high school students with the very large percentage -22.95% in 2015 compared to 2010. For the next 15 years (2015 -2030), the number of the students has gradually increased with the average rate of 11.2%/ 5 years, then decreases slightly with the rate of 2% in 2035 compared to 2030 and this is the interesting finding to be considered.
The results in table 2 also showed that the number of the male children at the age of kindergarten had the tendency to increase gradually with the average rate of 4.42%/ 5 years from 2010 to 2020. For the next 15 years, it is forecasted that the increase or decrease in the number of the male children at the age of kindergarten is quite erratic. In particularly, in 2020, these children will decrease with the rate of 7.56% compared to 2015, then they will increase at 1.78% in 2030 compared to 2025. For 20 years from 2010 to 2030, the male children at the age of kindergarten tend to increase gradually with the average rate of 3.65%/ 5 years. However, this number will slightly decrease in 2035 with the rate of 0.11% compared to 2030. Next, at primary school level, from 2010 to 2025, it is forecasted that the number of the male students has a gradual increase with the average rate of 4.3%/ 5 years (increasing by nearly 1% every year). However, this increase will be interrupted from 2025 to 2035 with the average reduction rate of 2.2%/ 5 years.
In 2015, the number of the male students of the secondary school level decreased by 5.4% compared to 2010. For the next 15 years from 2015 to 2030, it is forecasted that the male students of this school level increase gradually with the average rate of 4.81%/ 5 years, then decrease by 3% in 2035 compared to 2030. Finally, at high school level, the most remarkable thing is that the number of the male students dropped sharply in 2015 with the percentage of 22.72%, about 592.822 students. However, for 20 years later, the forecast tells that this rate will decrease gradually with an average of about 4.47%/ 5 years.

Discussion
In general, we found that the forecasting rate of the number of the children and students attending to school analyzed by gender showed that the number of the male children was 3% to 5%/ 5 years higher than the total children, students going to school in Vietnam. This number also reflected the difference the birth rate in gender in Vietnam today as well as the previous years (Son, 2013). In terms of education, it is necessary to carry out and solve the concerned issues such as teacher education focusing on gender, model of testing education with gender (if any), assurance of conditions consisting of school buildings, school yards, toilets and a variety of other conditions (Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), 2005). Based on the current data on the higher education level ratio between male and female in Vietnam, we cannot avoid worrying about it Toan (2013). In particularly, according to the data of the Central Vietnam Women's Union, in 2013, the proportion of women with university level (compared with the male ratio) in the whole country accounted for 36.24%; master level: 33.95% and doctoral level: 25.69%. In the period from 2011 -2015, there was 7.75% female professors and 24.64% associate professors was female. In general, there was 23.06% female professors and associate professors in total. In 2014, among 644 teachers recognized professors and associate professors, there was 3/59 female professors (5.08%) and 138/585 female associate professors (23.59%); in 2015, there was 129/522 female teachers recognized as professors and associate professors (24.9%), in which there was 5 female professors. There were 5 associate professors as ethnic minorities: 1 Ha Nhi ethnic group and 4 Tay ethnic group; 4 females, 1 male (Political Theory, 2016). The data of the female teachers recognized enough qualified as professors and associate professors from 2000 to 2015 in comparison with the male teachers, this figure was not significant in showing "weakness" of women, but this figure also told that the "weakness" of women in the new era had an high increase at risk if the number of the male children born every year more than female children with the significant proportion.
Moreover, if needing to have a baby, many parents in Vietnam desire and decide to have a son, which leads to the unbalanced behavior (Koontz et al., 2004). Specifically, the conflicts happening between husbands and wives and between the couples and their parents in the multiple generation families which result from having daughters also creates the unforgettable hallmark in their mind (Lee and Jun, 2016). In 2015, only in Ha Noi, the ratio of boys and girls was 118/110alerting to the serious gender imbalance. In fact, many people still say that son or daughter is not important because they all their children, but in their deep psychology, whether it is true is the question to think. Therefore, it is still painful in the heart of the mothers who just have girls. The pains cause a lot of girls must accept their unexpected destinies when they have not been born (Vietnam Law Newspaper, 2011)Many pregnant women decided to have an abortion when known that they are pregnant with girls from ultrasound scanning (Tuoi Tre Newspaper, 2016). Otherwise, if the child is born, his parents or relatives still have unequal behaviors between boys and girls through the sad evidences as different investment, different care, impolite words, etc. which is recognized easily. This is a finding that we feel concerned when gender discrimination is deeply embedded in Vietnamese family culture. It seems that the gender equality strategies are slow and ineffective in Vietnam.
The changes analyzed in the aspect of gender are natural. The analysis in detail showed that some special-lucky years such as the Gui (癸) year (one of the ten heavenly stems in Sexagenary cycle), the year of the good Chinese Zodiac designation according to the Eastern conception (Hung, 2013) has the most influence on gender when born, so the number of the children attending to school also fluctuates. It is evidenced that the remarkable difference in the 2015 -2020 forecast was the number of the primary students with 267,812 boys/girls. Exploiting detailed data, in the years of 2009, the "Silver Buffalo" year (Ji Chou -己丑), the number of births is outstanding, in which the number of male children is quite better with 200,414 children. Or the difference in primary school students in 2015 -2020, the number of male children than girls is 370,516, largely dominated by the number of outstanding births in 2012 -the "Golden Dragon" (Ren Chen -壬辰). This same data confirms that the gap between males and females in Vietnam is now 104 -106 or even more in special years compared to 100 in each year, which is perfectly appropriate (Economic Analysis, 2016). Our result allows to affirm the cultural and psychosocial factors of the children's gender conception, creating this significant difference. The responsibility of policymakers, sociologists, psychologists, demographics, etc. should be evident because this has been and has existed for many years leading to a gender imbalance in Vietnam as well as other consequences from the importance of male and female considerations in the conception of adult about the children's gender and the giving birth year.
The forecasted data on the number of the children and students attending to school in the whole country in general showed that there was a certain increase and decrease resulted from the basic causes: the rate through each yearaccording to the conception of the good year and the good year to have babies, the number of the students repeating the same class, the number of the students dropped out of school, the increasing change of the young labor forces, etc. The stressful situation of school occurred in the period 2014 -2015 because the number of the children going to the kindergarten has a sharp increase (The New Magazine, 2018); in 2018, the number of the primary students increased highly and the difference number between male children and female children was over 107 -100. The findings revealed that when there was no forecast information or no careful and scientific preparation, the stress on schools and teachers took place tensely in Vietnam, and the gender gap was also quite deep. This risk can happen in the next route in the years 2019, 2020 because there was an increase of the children born in 2016 and theses children will go to kindergarten in June, 2019, preschool in 2020, and primary school (grade 1) in 2022; or in 2024, the number of the children born in the year can put pressure on education because the number of the kindergarten children will increase in the period 2026 -2027, preschool in 2027 -2028, grade 1 in 2029, etc. if there are no total adjustments. Therefore, it is necessary to have strategies in communication to solve the relevant and raised issues to ensure the relative stability in the birth rate, the rate of male and female children attending to school, contributing to the sustainable development of education and society. This issue cannot be the planned or intended responsibility; it must be done urgently with human vision and mission.

Conclusion
The forecast results showed that the number of the male children in the school age was higher than that of the female children with the average rate from 3% to 5%/ 5 years of the total children, students going to school. In some years, this difference was much more and mearly reach +-10 (100 female childrennearly 110 male children). It was forecasted that this difference tended to increase gradually from 2010 to 2025, then it showed the slight slowdown from 2030 to 2035. In particular, the most difference occurred in 2025 with about 1,3744,568 male children/female children and the least difference was in 2015 with about 853,613 male children/female children.
It can be asserted that the forecast results show that we should give our attention to the gender difference between the male and female children because this leads to the gender imbalance and the assurance of the conditions for education development will be a barrier or a challenge. The responsibility of the policy makers, managers is to investigate to develop people into the harmonious and human ones, and develop education effectively and reasonably. At the same time, the traditional strategies to ensure the gender equality towards gender balance as well as sustainable development are now urgent tasks.