A time for change

By Son Nguyen in HCMC

The day comes with congratulations, flowers and gifts for educators nationwide, as students see the Vietnam Teachers Day on November 20 a good chance to pay respect to their teachers for their devotion to education. As usual, the age-old tradition has become a time for authorities to share the joy with teachers. And as usual, it is also a time for people from all strata of lives to speak out concerns and initiatives to improve the quality of national education.

There are, however, stronger calls in this year’s Vietnam Teachers Day for a change to revolutionize the national education sector, as now is the high time for the country to make leaps and bounces in its global integration.

The movement for changes, in fact, has begun since two years ago, when education minister Nguyen Thien Nhan initiated and campaigned for the so-called “Two No’s” at schools. The campaign – saying no to negatives in examinations and saying no to phony achievements in education – since the last academic year has been turned into a “Four No’s” movement by adding two new elements – saying no to educators’ unethical acts and saying no to substandard education.

The movement of changes, says Lao Dong, has reaped success, as teachers no longer face hurdles like the mandatory high proportion of students passing exams, allowing them to be more creative in their teaching.

The newspaper, in quoting a principal of a high-school in HCMC, says that alongside such movements there should also be more radical changes or reforms, especially in new policies relating to manpower, resources and teaching materials.

In his letter to teachers nationwide on the occasion of the Vietnam Teachers Day, education minister Nguyen Thien Nhan sums up the movement, saying the country’s education has entered the third year of the Two-No’s campaign. The movement is aimed to establish a pedagogical environment featured with order and disciplines, truth, objectivity, equitability, love, and promotion of creativity.

“We will make efforts to complete the Two-No’s campaign by 2010 when the pedagogical environment is re-established at most schools,” Nhan is quoted on the local media as saying.

Despite the initial but encouraging success in education reform, there remain a lot of problems in improving the quality of national education.

Ho Thieu Hung, former director of the HCMC Department of Education and Training, says at a seminar organized by Tuoi Tre newspaper that Vietnamese youths after graduating from local institutions are not ready to enter the real world.

Citing a just-completed survey conducted by the Education Research Institute, Hung says that eight out of ten high-school students want to enter universities while only three of them are knowledgeable enough, and seven out of ten university graduates wish to continue schooling. However, “most of these students are not really devoted in learning, but rather they fret about entering the real world,” Hung is quoted on the newspaper.

So, a call for change has become all the more urgent.

Professor Tuong Lai, in a full-length article on VietnamNet, says now is the high time for radical changes in Vietnam’s education beyond the Two-No’s or Four-No’s campaigns.

“Saying no to the negatives is necessary, but the most important thing is by no means the No, but rather the Yes; and on the basis of the Yes, let us focus resources on building a development strategy for education,” he proclaims.

The professor explains that today’s children are different from those in the 20th century. “They ride modern bikes, use modern cell phones, and are equipped with modern computers for broadband Internet surfing… So they should be entitled to modern education with modern contents and modern methodology. By contrast, however, they are now contained in old cages and given old knowledge under old methods,” he says.

In his suggestions on education reforms, the professor says primary schooling can be where the national identity is enshrined, but tertiary education must be the point for international integration. “A primary curriculum needs not to be similar to that in any other country, but a tertiary curriculum must meet international norms and degrees or diplomas given therein must be internationally recognized,” he says.

In his letter to teachers, minister Nguyen Thien Nhan says that Vietnam’s education sector should not end up in a blind alley, as the history has proved that the Vietnamese people have always find the way out, even when facing giant invaders. The minister says a draft strategy for the country’s education sector in the 2008-2020 period will be put forth for public comments so as to bring local education to a higher plane matching international achievements.

“The time is now,” says Professor Tuong Lai on the news website VietnamNet. “Let us place 22 million schoolchildren and students nationwide as the hosts of the new society in the context of the intellectual civilization where the knowledge-based economy is keeping the pace for the modern life in the 21st century.”

(from The Saigon Times Daily)

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