Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung signed a decree last month giving free tuition to students agreeing to take four-year courses on Marxism-Leninism and the thoughts of Ho Chi Minh, the country'€™s revolutionary hero, at state-run universities. Students have been shunning such degrees because employers are not interested in it, said Pham Tan Ha, head of admission and training at Ho Chi Minh City Social and Human Sciences University.

Degrees in subjects like communications, tourism, international relations and English are more popular because students believe '€œthey will have better chances of employment and better pay when they graduate,'€ he said.

Students who study certain medical specialties such as tuberculosis and leprosy also will get a free ride under the decree. Ordinarily they would have to pay the equivalent of about US$200 a year for tuition.

Currently, all Vietnamese students must take at least three classes in Marxist-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh studies, but few go beyond that minimum requirement. Vietnam is run by a Communist regime but embraced free-market reforms in the 1980s.

These days, the country'€™s past is mostly apparent in its large and inef cient state-owned sector, a repressive state apparatus, the occasional Soviet-era statue or building and lingering alliances with other leftist countries.

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