Within Vietnam's higher education system, traditional norm-referenced approaches to student assessment continue to be widely adopted. Though the system is progressively being reformed with a view to achieving comparability with leading higher education systems globally, student assessment policies and practices have so far proven to be resistant to change. This article addresses the challenge of achieving change in these policies and practices. It is informed by an ethnographic investigation of experiences with student assessment for a selected sample group of academic staff members at three significant teacher training universities in Vietnam. A framework for achieving change is proposed in light of these experiences and having regard to insights from the relevant conceptual literature.