Urban-Rural Access Gap in Vietnamese K-12 Programming Training: A Landscape Synthesis

This paper synthesises a descriptive landscape of the urban-rural access gap in Vietnamese K-12 programming training as it stands in 2026. The synthesis is structured around five operationally distinct access dimensions: equipment (school computer-laboratory presence, household device penetration, broadband connectivity), teacher capacity (sư phạm Tin certified teacher distribution, ETEP in-service certification rate, multigrade and cross-certification deployment patterns), learning materials (Vietnamese-language algorithmic-programming textbook coverage, online supplementary resources, language-ofinstruction match), mentor availability (chuyên Tin teacher mentor density, IOI alumnus mentor network reach, CLB Olympic Tin extracurricular layer presence), and contest pipeline (provincial HSG informatics infrastructure, HSG-QG / VOI accessibility, IOI-track preparation venue presence). Each dimension is profiled with the quantitative shape supported by available evidence and the qualitative shape where the evidence does not support quantification. Two worst-affected sub-populations are identified: (a) ethnic-minority remote schools in mountainous and Mekong Delta provinces, where the access deficit is structurally compounded across all five dimensions; and (b) suburban under-resourced public schools in peri-urban districts of urban poles, where the deficit is concentrated in the mentor-availability and contest-pipeline dimensions despite parity in the equipment and materials dimensions. Existing mitigation initiatives are catalogued at descriptive level: MOET ETEP in-service training, VOI provincial programmes, the VNOI online infrastructure (wiki, online judge, mentor community), and the small but growing non-state-actor layer (charity programmes, NGO initiatives, private-school cross-subsidy). The paper is descriptive, not normative; policy recommendations and intervention designs are deferred to downstream Layer E, G, and H papers. The contribution is fourfold: (i) a single-document synthesis of the five access dimensions that no published Vietnamese-language paper to the author's knowledge currently provides at the descriptive level needed for program reference; (ii) a triangulation of GSO statistical-yearbook indicators with MOET regulatory provisions and World Bank / UNESCO sector-report findings; (iii) an explicit identification of the worst-affected sub-populations with the structural mechanisms by which they are stratified; and (iv) a per-dimension confidence ledger flagging citation gaps for future authors with privileged access to MOET internal statistics, provincial DGE registries, or VBĐ press archives. Approximately twenty quantitative claims are reported across the five dimensions; eight are held at documented-range level pending direct primary-source triangulation.