With a fast expansion in both size and substance in the past 20 years, the Vietnamese media system is beginning to feel the need for formal journalism education and training. However, the country's four major journalism programs have been fiercely criticised for lagging far behind the big demand, producing hundreds of unqualified journalism graduates a year. Based on data from archival research and indepth interviews with Vietnamese journalists and journalism educators as well as an analysis of curricula, this paper sets out to review this situation and provide a critical analysis of the why and how of this irrelevance, its implications for journalism standards in the country, and potential measures and strategies to improve the situation. First, it will provide a brief overview of journalism education and training in Vietnam, particularly its history and current structure of provision. Second, it reviews the appealing nature of a journalism career among young Vietnamese and the resulting tough entry requirement of journalism programs in universities. Third, it shows that those good students who pass the harsh entrance exam to start a journalism degree seem to have become incompetent graduates in the eyes of many, if not most, senior journalists and media managers, after their four-year programs. The report then goes on to analyse the curricula and other pedagogical aspects in the country's three major journalism schools to explore the possible reasons for this failure. A recommendation for changes towards professionalism in journalism education will be presented at the end
