VietNamNet Bridge - Teachers and students still have to use textbooks which contain outdated and inaccurate  information. 

Nguyen Tan Ngu Le, a teacher at Le Quy Don High School in HCM City, thinks geography textbooks are the most outdated. 

The textbook for 12th graders says Vietnam’s annual income per capita is $500 and that  Vietnam is a low income country. The figure should be over $1,000, and Vietnam is now low middle-income country.

The Vietnamese population has reached 91 million, but the textbook says 84 million, the figure of 10 years ago.

Also according to Le, the textbook says that ‘the population has been increasing rapidly and Vietnam has young population’. The General Department of Population & Family Planning has affirmed that Vietnam has entered the ‘golden population’ period.

The textbook for 11th graders, when mentioning developed economies, does not include China which has surpassed other countries to become the second largest economy in the world.

Teachers and students still have to use textbooks which contain outdated and inaccurate  information.

Tran Van Quang, a geography teacher of Tran Dai Nghia High School in HCM City, noted that it is necessary to change textbooks as soon as possible. A lot of hydropower plants have been built, while Atlas still says Son La, Ban Ve, Xe Xan 3, Sre Pok 3, 4 are ‘under the construction’. 

The textbook for 12th graders says Vietnam has five international airports, while in fact, the current figure is 11.

Why don’t teachers update information themselves and provide updated statistics to students? Le said teachers and students are told to stick to textbooks which are mandatory. 

Even if teachers want to update information, they cannot find reliable information sources. The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) does not specify which sources of information teachers need to refer to. As a result, teachers seek information from different sources.

Vu Duy Sau, a parent in HCM City, complained that his daughter was having difficulties with lessons about fowl breeding. 

“I don’t understand why primary school students in cities need to learn how to breed fowls,” he said. “Since students cannot practice the fowl breeding, they cannot understand the lesson."

Sau’s daughter, a fifth grader, has to learn how to take care of pregnant women, and about Type A hepatitis and encephalitis. But they do not learn about more common diseases such as short-sightedness or mumps. 

“As a result, some students even went to school though they had mumps,” Sau said.

Do Ngoc Thong, a senior official of MOET, though admitting that textbooks show outdated statistics, said that textbooks cannot recompiled every year.

Tien Phong