Of the total funding, US$50 million comes from a World Bank soft loan and the rest is granted by the European Commission (EC) and the governments of Belgium, Canada, Norway, New Zealand and the United Kingdom (UK).

One of the programme's main objectives is to strengthen accessibility and equality, and to improve educational quality for primary schools in underprivileged localities.

The Action Plan for National Popular Education sets out four target groups, that need more investment, including pre-school education, primary education, secondary education and in-service training.

Over the past time, Vietnam's educational achievements have been considered to be impressive compared with many other Asian countries with the same per-capita incomes.

The Vietnamese people’s average educational level now exceeds seventh grade. Since 1999, the enrollment rate for school-age children has increased to 98 percent from 86 percent, the dropout rate has fallen to 3 percent from 12 percent, the grade-repetition rate has decreased from 9 percent to 5 percent, and the graduation rate for primary school children has risen from 47 percent to 99 percent.

To reach the targets set in the 2006-2010 Action Plan, the Government of Vietnam is attempting to increase its financial resources. The State budget is still a main supply for all-level education development and modernisation, as well as the education sector’s targets.

The State budget for education has increased in recent years, accounting for 18 percent of the total budget in 2005 from 17 percent in 2004. Educators hope that the figure will reach 20 percent in 2010.

The Government has also mobilized capital for education from bonds, foreign loans and grants.