Place leadership and sustainable marketing for rights-based quality education in Northern Vietnam

This study explores how place leadership shapes change and promotes access to quality education in a mountainous province Northern Vietnam, which was a poverty core area. Using a qualitative-dominant mixed-methods design, survey data were collected from 36 educational leaders and 100 parents during the 2024–2025 academic year, alongside nine purposive one-on-one in-depth interviews. The research results identify multi-layered barriers hindering Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), including resource scarcity, cognitive misalignment, and the passive ‘job security’ mindset within the public sector. However, the study finds that effective place leaders have emerged as positive ‘change agents’. Specifically, this case study demonstrates that sustainable marketing can serve as a soft power tool to transform parents from passive participants into co-partners who share responsibility for collectively raising awareness of children's rights. The results contribute to place leadership theory by integrating Social Profit Orientation and Child Rights-based Pedagogy, providing a practical roadmap for sustainable development in vulnerable regions.