According to the deputy headmaster of a primary school in Nghe An, many parents have noted that in the past there was only one set of textbooks for each grade compiled by the Ministry of Education and Training. So the textbooks could be transferred from elder to younger siblings in families. Now, textbooks will be thrown away only after one year if schools change textbooks every year.

MOET has approved the use of 46 textbooks classified in five sets of textbooks for first graders, including ‘Cung hoc de phat trien nang luc’ (study together to promote capabilities), ‘Vi su binh dang va dan chu trong giao duc’ (For equality and democracy in education), “Ket noi tri thuc va cuoc song’ (connecting knowledge and real life), ‘Chan troi sang tao’ (Creative horizons) and ‘Canh Dieu’ (Kites), from three publishing houses. Schools can choose one of the sets of textbooks for use in their schools.

Of these five sets of textbooks, four belong to the Vietnam Education Publishing House (Study together to promote capabilities; For equality and democracy in education; Connecting knowledge and the real life; and Creative horizons).

However, the publishing house only offers two sets of textbooks (Connecting knowledge and the real life; and Creative Horizon) for second graders.

Since there is no ‘Study together and promote capabilities’ and ‘Kites’ textbooks for second graders, many schools have decided to choose textbooks for first graders so that students can use the same kinds of textbooks for both first and second grades. This means that textbooks bought by parents for hundreds of thousands of dong would be thrown away after one year of use.

When stating that there are only two sets of textbooks for second graders instead of four as expected, the Vietnam Education Publishing House said that this would not affect the teaching and learning of teachers and students and the choices of textbooks.

“Every textbook closely follows the requirements students need to satisfy the 2018 general education program. This means that no matter which textbooks students choose, they will have meet certain standards,” a representative of the publishing house said.

He said that though differences exist, all the textbooks show the publishing house’s viewpoints in textbook compilation, so there is continuity between the four sets of textbooks for first graders and two sets of textbooks for second graders. No matter which textbooks students use for first grades, they can choose either ‘Connecting knowledge with the real life’ or ‘Creative horizon’ for second grades.

Deputy Director of the education and training department in the northern region said schools and teachers choose textbooks before every academic year. If they find new textbooks have higher quality and are more suitable, they will choose the new ones. 

This means that schools may choose these textbooks this year and choose other textbooks the next year.

He said it is understandable why schools want textbooks of the same sets for first, second and subsequent graders. This aims to ensure continuity in teaching.

The deputy headmaster of a primary school in Nghe An said in principle schools have the right to choose other textbooks if the other textbooks have higher quality. However, this will cause parents to suffer as they have to spend hundreds of thousands of dong to buy new textbooks.

This also affects teaching as teachers need to attend training courses. “How many training courses will teachers have to attend if schools change textbooks continuously?” she said.

“Buying new textbooks is be not a big problem for urban students, but it is really a big problem for rural families, especially ones with many children. And textbooks now are more expensive than in the past,” she said.

Hai Nguyen