VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam Escuela Nueva (VNEN) is considered an innovative teaching method, but many parents  have opposed its use.

The Ha Giang and Ha Tinh provincial authorities have decided that the VNEN model will not be applied on a large scale in their localities.

Seventy parents whose children go to the Dat Do Secondary School in Ba Ria-Vung Tau decided to withdraw their children from VNEN classes. This also occurred in Dak Lak province when the 2015-2016 academic year began.

Explaining their decision, the parents whose children go to Dat Do Secondary School, said at the open dialogue with the school’s board of management that their children’s learning results were ‘worryingly bad’.

The problem is that there are too many students in every class in the province, about 60, where good students sit together with bad ones.

If VNEN cannot be improved, it is only suitable to schools in mountainous areas.

“Since students sit in groups, bad students don’t want to do exercises, but just want to copy from good students,” PT, a parent, said. “I feel that students tend to be lazier."

Meanwhile, Tran Thi L complained that her son could not understand lessons because the teachers did not give explanations. Teachers only raised questions and topics for students to discuss.

L feared that if continuing to follow the VNEN model, her son would fail the national exams.

Another parent complained that her son could not understand the lessons though he was rarely absent from the class. 

"I wish I could help him. But I don’t have textbooks designed in accordance with the VNEN model,” he said.

Even teachers don’t like teaching in accordance with the VNEN model, though experts say with the model, teachers won’t be too busy because they don’t have to compile lesson plans.

What teachers have to do at VNEN classes is put forward issues for students to discuss before they summarize the discussions and give final conclusions. Students will become independent and self-confident.

However, a teacher in district 2, HCM City, denied the experts’ thought that teachers don’t have to be busy with VNEN classes, saying that she had to spend a lot of time decorating and designing the classes to meet the requirements. She also had to prepare diagrams, tables and pictures for the lessons.

Vu Thu Huong, a lecturer from the Hanoi University of Education, said that if VNEN cannot be improved, it is only suitable to schools in mountainous areas.

Huong said though the model has many advantages, it will be helpful only if parents and teachers change their minds and adapt to new circumstances.


PLO