VietNamNet Bridge – Some secondary schools in HCM City have been found as using the software with the image of nine dotted line sourced from China. No agency has taken responsibility for this.

Earth Explorer, a software piece associated with the informatics textbook for 7th graders in Vietnam, showing the image of the controversial nine dotted line, can be downloaded from Motherplanet.com.

This is the website of Motherplanet, headquartered in Shanghai, China, established in 2002 which specializes in providing 3D graphics and maps.

In Vietnam, teachers say one can buy disks to install the software or download the software from Internet as introduced by Vnschool, an information technology firm.

The company introduces on its website the set of three books useful for the informatics teaching for secondary school students, compiled in accordance with the curriculums set up by the Ministry of Education and Training in 2004.

Vu Dinh Chuan, Director of the Secondary Education Department, was so surprised when reporters contacted him and asked about the information.

However, he said: “It is the Information Technology Agency which takes responsibility for the software products used at schools. It is not our job.”

Meanwhile, Quach Tuan Ngoc, Director of the Information Technology Agency on December 24 told Dat Viet reporters: “This is under the control of the Secondary Education Department, because this is the software used for teaching specific subjects.”

Ngoc explained that the department determines what software products are used for teaching subjects, while his agency takes care for other issues. “Software and machines do not always mean “technology”,” Ngoc said.

Also according to Ngoc, the textbooks are compiled by a group of authors and the software has been provided by Vnschool.

Meanwhile, the HCM City Education and Training Department has affirmed that it is the Education Publishing House which must be responsible for this.

Do Minh Hoang, Chief Secretariat of the HCM City Education and Training Department, affirmed that the department on December 24 released a document, instructing districts’ education sub-departments and schools not to use the software with the image of the nine dotted line.

Prior to that, the city department had reported to the Ministry of Education and Training about the problem.

The software has been found as being used not only by the schools in HCM City, but by the schools throughout the country as well.

“As soon as realizing Earth Explorer with the nine dotted line, we have made a decision on prohibiting to use the software in order to avoid to provide wrong knowledge to students,” he said.

However, Hoang denied the fact that the software is from a Chinese company, affirming that the software is a part of the informatics books released by the Ministry of Education and Training.

“We have always been using the official documents released by the ministry,” he maintained. “It is baseless to say we bought Chinese software.”

“We did not buy books from any Chinese company. We bought the books from the Education Publishing House,” he explained.

Therefore, Hoang believes that the Education Publishing House must be responsible for the problem.

Dat Viet