Confucian Education: Foundation of the National Civilization or Historic Main Culprit?

Abstract

Evaluating the role and impact of Confucian education in Vietnamese history is certainly a very complicated problem. Based on historical-political cultural approach, the author firstly points out four significant contributions of Confucian education in development of the Vietnamese civilization in the pre-modern history of Vietnam. The author goes further in the second part with his analysis of the criticism of radical Confucians on the Confucian education, in which Confucian education was consider the root cause of the fall of Vietnam under colonial rule. Later the Confucian education was even instrumentalized by the French in order to suppress the anti-colonialist movements and to strengthen their ruling in Vietnam. All these reflect the historical uneasy journey of Confucianism in the modern history of Vietnam which requires for further studies and re-evaluation.