VietNamNet Bridge – History teachers at high schools complain that their students sit nodding in history lessons. Meanwhile, culturists and historians have warned that Vietnamese people may become “history illiterate.”

A teacher of the Bao Loc High School in Lam Dong province contacted the editorial board of Tien phong newspaper, talking about the discontent she and other colleagues have to bear as the history teachers.

One day, the teacher expressed her dissatisfaction about the bad marks her students got from the year-end history exam. Only 1/3 of the students in the class got five (passing mark) or higher.

“When I said to my students that I felt sad about the bad result, and I know many other students from the poor families who got 9.5 or 10 marks from the exam, one of my student said: “It is because they have cattle’s brains”,” she said.

The teacher was very surprised with the saying, and asked: “How about you?” - “Our brains are the humans’ ones” – the same student replied.

The answer was then applauded by most of the students in the class, who believed that they would be better to spend time on learning other subjects, and that only foolish students would waste time on less important subjects.

In fact, similar words can be resounded at any schools and in any class, because this is the common thought of nearly all high school students.

“History is compared with the root of a tree, while other subjects as the trunks, branches or leaves. The tree would die if it does not have the root which absorbs the food and water to feed the branches and leaves. However, in fact, the root has never been respected,” the teacher from Lam Dong complained.

Tran Kim Thuy, a teacher of the Experimental High School under the Thai Nguyen University, also said that students would not attend history lessons, if they know that history is not the subject for the high school finals.

The vicious circle

While teachers believe that history has been disregarded by students, because very few students nowadays choose to follow social science studies at university education level, experts believe that students do not like the subject because of the low qualification of teachers.

NTT, an official of an education and training department, who was once worked as a history teacher, said her students many times told her that they felt highly enthusiastic when learning history.

“I found out that it is the teacher who can make the history lessons succeed,” T noted.

“Teachers need to be the center of the history education revolution,” said Dr Nghiem Dinh Vy from the Ministry of Education and Training.

A vicious circle has been existing. Since history is not attractive in the eyes of students, very few high school graduates want to study history. As a result, history faculties of universities cannot enroll high quality students and cannot produce qualified history teachers. Therefore, the teachers cannot help arouse the students’ love to history.

A history lecturer of the Quy Nhon University said that only 299 students registered to attend the exam to the history faculty of the school last summer, while the school planned to enroll 100.

He said that the problem not only occurs with his schools, but all other schools as well, warning that history faculties of the schools would have to close in some more years.

Nguyen Huong