Hundreds of parents in Nghe An Province have gathered at a local primary school to protest against the Ministry of Education and Training's new Vietnam Escuela Nueva (VNEN) education programme.


 

 Students study with the VNEN programme at Nguyen Trai Primary School in Vinh City


The parents gathered at Nguyen Trai Primary School in Vinh City on August 23 with posters saying the VNEN programme should be stopped.


Representatives from the city's Education and Training Department and leaders of the school had come to meet with the parents who insisted that the programme was not suitable for their children.

The parents claimed that the abnormal posture while studying the programme is badly affecting their children's vision and spine. Meanwhile, the school is in short of proper equipment required by the programme so students sometimes have difficulties studying.

In addition, the programme hasn't brought positive outcomes with students showing a lack of interest and so not learning much.

Moreover, students are having problems joining with those from other schools that don't follow the VNEN.

Many parents said that they have tried to find extra classes for their children or move them to other schools that do not take the programme.

At the meeting with parents, head of the city Department of Education and Training, Thai Khac Tan, said that they will gather all the opinions from parents and send to the ministry for further directions.

It is said that many parents in Hung Dung 1 Primary School in the city have also tried to move their students to other schools after a short time the programme was piloted at the school.

VNEN was designed to make students more engaged in class with teachers serving as facilitators, and parents as well as other community members more involved in making learning relevant to children.

The VNEN project, worth about US$84.6 million, funded by the Global Partnership for Education, was run in more than 2,300 primary schools and about 1,000 secondary schools between January 2013 and May 2016.

In a document sent to heads of localities nationwide early this month, Minister Phung Xuan Nhạ said although the model created a friendly education environment, it had shortcomings.

Nhạ said applying the model in schools with few teachers and poor infrastructure was ineffective. Therefore, after the project ended, applying the model was made voluntary.

Schools that had yet to apply the model were encouraged to use the model’s plus points in their teaching, he said.

Several localities asked the ministry to suspend the application and extension of the teaching model.

Dtinews