The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) plans to issue a circular on online teaching at general schools to help local authorities and schools apply this teaching form under their respective conditions.

As for tertiary education, MOET is working on amending the regulations to allow training establishments at a certain level to build online teaching management systems and switch to a training mode with both online and offline training.

Parents’ concerns

The new academic year has begun amid the second Covid-19 outbreak. Thanh Lan, a parent in Ba Dinh district, is worried as about online classes.

“My son had online classes in April and May. At that time, my husband and I had to sit in front of the computer to study with him because he could not concentrate,” Lan said.

“He could not understand the lessons well and we had to explain again,” she said.

Lan and her husband worked from home in April and May, so they could support their son. Lan wonders what will happen if he has to study online again without parents by his side.

“I have heard that MOET plans to set online teaching as part of curriculum. But I am afraid a lot of problems will arise, especially for primary schools, because small children are usually distracted,” Lan said.

The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) plans to issue a circular on online teaching at general schools to help local authorities and schools apply this teaching form under their respective conditions.

Le Quynh Hoa, a parent in Cau Giay district, said online teaching would be ineffective for primary school students.

“It would be okay if small children study online with the parents’ supervision. However, parents don’t have time to do this because they have busy working days."

Meanwhile, Nguyen Van Long, a parent in district 10, HCM City, is worried about how to control the time his son uses computer.

His son, a ninth grader, is allowed to use the computer one hour a day in the evening.

“If online teaching hours are in the daytime, when we are at work, we won’t be able to control the time my son uses the computer,” Long said. "Using a computer too much won’t be good to my son. Besides, I am afraid he will use it to access websites with bad content."

School managers’ concerns

Huynh Thanh Phu, headmaster at Nguyen Du High School in HCM City, said not all teachers have computers or laptops. He said that it would take time for teachers to practice using the teaching software. And it is not clear who will pay for the software.

Truong Thi Bich Thuy, headmaster of Trung Vuong High School, said the school is using Microsoft software and the cost is VND900,000 for each teacher. As such, the school has to spend VND100 million to pay a fee for its 120 teachers.

“We’ll have to think about the financial sources for the spending items. If we spend the state’s money, we will have to ask for permission from the education department. If we collect the fees through tuition, there must be a decision by the municipal authorities,” she said.

Trung Vuong School has conducted a survey on the readiness of online learning and found that 95 percent of the school’s 1,900 students have computers or smartphones with an internet connection.

Teachers’ concerns

Nguyen Van Luc, a teacher of history at Dien Khanh Secondary School in Khanh Hoa province, who has been working for 34 years, said: "To prepare for one 45-minute teaching period, I have to have a 2-day preparation."

“I feel under pressure. I have to practice many times to be sure that my words match with the slide shows,” he said.

According to Do Anh Duc, a lecturer at the Hanoi University of Social Sciences and Humanities under the Hanoi National University, the biggest difficulty is that teachers need to have imagination.

“You will have to change your teaching method if you face a camera and not the students,” he said. 

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