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VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Education and Training has drawn up am ambitious plan to develop the network of gifted schools. However, educators have warned that the plan will not succeed if the current curriculum for training talented students is not adjusted.
Talented students trained to attend university entrance exams
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That also explains why in recent years, it is very difficult to persuade good students to attend national competitions for excellent students. Most of the students think that they would rather use their energy to prepare for university entrance exams than for national competitions. Meanwhile, national competitions are organized just four months before the university entrance exams.
Vo Anh Dung, Headmaster of Le Hong Phong School for the Gifted also admitted that the school has mainly been preparing students for the university entrance exams – the most important exams in the life of students. As a result, students do not give their whole mind to their main subjects.
The same situation can also be seen at Gia Dinh High School where there are four specialized classes for the talented students in four majors, mathematics, physics, chemistry and English. Nguyen Thi Cuc, the headmaster of the school, said that the school sets up special classes in which it trains students in different majors. However, very few students have registered to follow the classes. Some of the classes only have 10 students.
Dung said that the curriculums applied for majoring students prove to be too different from the general curriculums, meaning that the students who follow special curriculums will not have enough knowledge to attend university entrance exams. Therefore, it is understandable why students only want to follow general curriculums.
Educators say that they worry when seeing the number of talented students attending national competitions for excellent students decreasing sharply year after year. The number of medals and prizes has also been gradually decreasing.
The achievements gained by the Vietnamese national Olympiad teams have become less satisfactory in recent years. Vietnam won four gold medals in 2006 and then eight gold medals in 2008. Meanwhile, in 2010, it won two gold medals only. The mathematics national team was always listed among top 10 national teams in the world prior to 2005. Meanwhile, since 2005, it has fallen to the 11-15th ranks.
While talented students are busy studying the three subjects to prepare for the university entrance exams, educators want them to focus on their majoring subjects. However, they cannot do anything to improve the situation.
Gifted school students are not the best?
According to Dung, the current mechanism of enrolling students does not allow schools to choose the best students for gifted schools.
Under the current regulations, only the students, who get the title of “excellent student” in secondary school, can attend the exams to gifted schools. Meanwhile, Dung believes that many other students, who have talent in some majors do not have the title because they are not good at all subjects
Dung believes that it is necessary to change the current admissions process in order not to miss out talents.
Which solutions?
Dr Nguyen Duc Nghia, Deputy Director of the HCM City National University, said that the solution is to enroll excellent students, who get prizes at national competitions, to universities without forcing them to attend the university entrance exams.
Once excellent students feel secure about their future at universities, they will focus their energy on studying their majors.
However, the Ministry of Education and Training has remained unresponsive to the proposal.
Source: Nguoi lao dong
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