VietNamNet Bridge – The city's Department of Education and Training yesterday asked all high schools in the city to finish self-assessment reports on the quality of education they provide and submit them by the end of next year.

Teacher and students take part in a class in Gia Dinh High School in HCM City's Binh Thanh District. The city's Education and Training Department ordered every high school to complete quality self-assessment reports by the end of next year. (Photo: VNS)

Both the schools' management boards as well as their teachers should consider this exercise very important and be proactive about it, Minh said.

A department report released in June showed that 36 of 480 high schools in the city had completed the self-assessment report.

The remaining should immediately take specific steps to finish the self-assessment report in order to help the department make its own assessments and publicise findings on its website, he added.

The Ministry of Education and Training had already issued a set of standards for high schools to make the self-assessment, Minh noted.

The criteria include: high schools' development strategy; organisation and management; teaching staff; curricula; teaching methods; outdoor activities; financial resources; facilities; relations between school authorities and students' parents as well as the community; and students' learning.

The criteria made it easy to make accurate self-assessments, Minh said.

Unsuitable criteria

However, at the workshop which discussed experiences in making the self-assessment report by the 36 high schools in the districts of Phu Nhuan, Tan Phu and Tan Binh, many school leaders, especially those of private schools, complained of difficulties.

Le Trong Tin, principal of the Nguyen Khuyen Private High School, said some standards including those regarding facilities and teaching staff did not match his school's situation.

He said his school's five branches in Tan Binh, Binh Thanh and Thu Duc districts were all leased properties, so their classrooms could not meet the ministry's standards, not to mention other facilities like libraries, playgrounds and laboratories.

Moreover, the number of teachers in the school always changed because most of them were employed by time-bound contracts which enables them to move easily to other schools that offered them better conditions, Tin said.

Cao Huy Thao, principal of the Viet Nam-Australia International High School, complained that the management criteria required the principal and vice-principal to spend time visiting classrooms during a class to give feedback to teachers.

He said this activity was regularly implemented at public schools, but not international ones, making it difficult for his school to make self- assessments based on this standard

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News