Province offers up to $40,000 for students winning international Olympiad gold medal, eight times Vietnam’s GDP per capita

Quang Ninh’s base award for an international gold is VND700 million ($26,600). It rises to VND1.05 billion for students who are from ethnic minorities or who live in designated ethnic minority, mountainous or island communes.

Silver pays VND500 million, bronze VND400 million and a certificate of merit VND200 million, under a resolution effective Aug. 1. Teachers who train a winner collect half the student’s award.

The province also pays VND70 million for a national first prize, more than 17 times the state rate.

For scale, VND1.05 billion is more than a decade of earnings for the average Vietnamese worker, who made VND8.4 million a month last year, according to the national statistics office.

National rewards are far smaller, including VND55 million ($2,090) for an international gold, VND35 million for silver and VND25 million for bronze, with national-level prizes worth VND1 million to VND4 million.

Coming second among Vietnam’s localities are Hai Phong, Ninh Binh and Bac Ninh which now pay VND500 million ($19,000) for an international first prize.

Da Nang is paying VND400 million, followed by Hanoi, Hue the Mekong Delta’s Vinh Long with VND300 million, and Hung Yen and Tuyen Quang with VND250 million.

Ho Chi Minh City pays VND200 million for a top international prize.

The rewards were announced following Vietnam’s strongest Olympiad season on record.

All six contestants medaled at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Shanghai from July 10 to 21, two of them with gold. Vietnam finished fifth among 119 countries and territories, up from ninth in 2025.

All four chemistry team members took gold in Tashkent, where 368 students from 93 countries and territories competed. Vietnam tied China and India for the most golds, and it was the fourth time since 1996 that every Vietnamese entrant won gold.

The physics team took four golds and a silver in Colombia, its best result, with two students scoring a perfect 30 out of 30 on the theory paper.

Vietnamese students earned 362 medals from regional and international Olympiads between 2016 and 2025, including 112 golds, according the Ministry of Education and Training. They were often among the competitions’ top 10, with the chemistry team among the world’s top 5 since 2020.