VietNamNet Bridge – The Vietnam History Science Association has honored 206 general school students who got high prizes at the national history competition. However, it knows for sure that the majority of the 206 students would not continue history studies at a higher education level.

The ceremony honoring the history major students took place on April 5, 2013, where five first prizes, 34 second prizes, 78 third prizes and 89 consolation prizes were awarded to 206 students. Five first prizes were given to the students from Nam Dinh, Ninh Binh, Ha Nam and Quang Binh.

Though there have been many general school students gloried for their good knowledge about history, Vietnam does not have many historians. This is because the excellent students would not continue studying history when they finish high school.

According to Prof Phan Huy Le, Chair of the Vietnam History Science Association, 211 students were honored in 2012 for their big achievements. The students had the right to enroll in the history faculties of the state owned schools without having to attend the university entrance exams.

However, the right was used by only a few of them. Nine students enrolled in the history faculty of the Hanoi University of Education, 3 to the Da Nang University of Education, one to the Hanoi University of Social Sciences and Humanity. As such, only 13 students decided to continue history studies at the university education level, which accounted for less than 10 percent of history majoring excellent students.

The majority of polled general school students frankly said they are afraid of history lessons.

Local newspapers some days ago reported that the 12th graders of the Nguyen Hien High School in HCM City tore up the history textbooks just several hours after the Ministry of Education and Training announced the high school final exam subjects. Since history is not an exam subject, the students threw away the textbooks and documents relating to history.

Meanwhile, Giao duc Vietnam’s reporters, when conducting a mini survey on the learning of history at school, met a fourth grader, who said frankly she hated history subject.

The reporters raised some questions to 3rd, 4th and 5th graders to examine the students’ history knowledge and surprisingly found out that many of them did not have basic knowledge about Vietnam’s history. Especially, these were very simple questions such as “What is the capital city of Vietnam?” or “Which enemy did Hai Ba Trung fight against?”

Duong Trung Quoc, a well-known Vietnamese historian, now a National Assembly Deputy, said that the current problem cannot be settled overnight, while the glory of history majoring excellent students alone will not help make students passionate to history lessons.

Quoc said that Vietnamese students don’t like studying history for many reasons – the heavy curriculums, unreasonable teaching method or the overloading of academic knowledge. All that factors make history lessons boring and uninteresting to students.

Especially, he complained that historians and the people who follow history studies, do not receive any valuable awards except the spiritual encouragement. Meanwhile, students prefer studying economics and technologies, the majors which can bring them good job opportunities.

“Everyone says they understand the significance of history studies. But they do not choose to study history as their career,” he noted.

GDVN