VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has admitted
that big problems exist in the textbooks for the national education system. It
has also been aware of the necessity for a “revolution” in the way of compiling
textbooks.
|
Problems admitted
MOET Minister Pham Vu Luan on December 25 had a report before the National
Assembly’s Committee for Culture, Education, the Youth and Children about the
educational problems, including the textbook compilation.
A lot of educators and scientists have criticized the quality of the textbooks
for general schools, saying that the lessons are too academic and unpractical to
students.
Luan said that the curriculums and lessons in the textbooks have not been
designed in a harmonization so as to create a perfect whole with the links of
curriculums from primary to secondary and high education.
Luan also said that abstract terms have been provided in textbooks, thus making
it understandable to students, while the knowledge provided proves to be too
heavy to students. Especially, the lessons have been designed in a way which
does not fit the lesson duration (45 minutes for a learning period).
The current teaching method has been described as the
“teacher-say-students-take-notes” method, which means that students receive
knowledge in a passive way. As a result, students feel tired when attending
lessons, while teachers have to overwork and get disappointed with students.
Some analysts commented that MOET seems to “stuff students’ heads with
everything it can”, which has resulted in the unreasonable curricula. Students
learn everything, and then they forget everything.
MOET needs time to reconsider the issue, but how much time will it need?
Responding to the call that it is necessary to carry out a “revolution” in
compiling textbooks, MOET said it agrees that Vietnam needs such an revolution,
but it needs some more time to think of it.
MOET’s Minister Pham Vu Luan said that the ministry now thinks of the
possibility of having more than one set of textbooks for every grade. Educators,
citing the models applied in other countries, have suggested that MOET should
only set up the standard programs, while compilers would write textbooks based
on the programs. There would be different choices in textbooks for students, who
would choose the ones they most like.
However, Luan said that MOET still needs time to think about the
“one-program-many-sets-of- textbooks” suggestion, because this is a serious
matter.
However, the promise still cannot lift people’s worry. How much more time will
MOET need to think about the issue before it makes decision? And how much more
time will it need to turn the idea into reality?
For the time being, Vietnamese students still have to bear overloaded
curriculums and learn with too academic and unpractical knowledge provided in
textbooks.
Vietnamese parents keep complaining that there are so many kinds of reference
books that they don’t know what to choose for their children.
The noteworthy thing is that many reference textbooks have low quality which may
make students’ knowledge distorted. However, the textbooks still could “go
through the supervision agencies” to be put into the market.
Meanwhile, the majority of students say they need reference books to improve
their knowledge, once the textbooks compiled by the education ministry are not
enough for them, if they want to pass the national exams, especially the
university entrance exams.
However, once again, MOET needs time to think about how to control the book
market.
Dat Viet