VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam has a large system of schools for the gifted where the best students receive special education designed for them. However, experts believe that the ‘skimming’ method, or ‘training fighting cocks’, is no longer suitable.


The students, who have special abilities in certain majors, will be gathered in the groups of students with similar abilities for intensive training. They have opportunities to study with the most experienced teachers.

The students are called ‘seeds’ who could be candidates for national and international competitions. Many Vietnamese students who have won high prizes at international Olympiads were from schools for the gifted. 

However, experts believe that the training method should no longer be applied in Vietnam, because the method only aims to have students reach higher achievements and higher marks at exams, while it does not focus on helping promote students’ in-born talents. 

Vietnam has a large system of schools for the gifted where the best students receive special education designed for them.

In other words, the method focuses on short-term achievements, and does not develop students’ talents, way of thinking and encourage creativity.

Phan Thi Ha Duong, a renowned mathematician from the Math Institute, who was a math major student of the high school for the gifted, said it was necessary to reorganize the system of schools for the gifted so as to avoid the ‘fighting cock’ practice method. She said if the students with talents can be discovered soon and cultivated in the right way they will have a bright future.

Do Duc Thai from the Hanoi University of Education, also a renowned mathematician, said that there were two important tasks that schools for the gifted have to handle – discovering talents and cultivating them. Meanwhile, the former work cannot be done well by schools for the gifted.

In principle, students have to attend entrance exams to enter schools for the gifted, or they have to show their abilities first before they can receive special education treatment.

Thai described the method as ‘skimming’. In other words, students need to ‘emerge’ to be found. Meanwhile, in many cases, talented students have not ‘emerged’, and therefore, they cannot be discovered.

“It is now the right time to think of measures to discover and foster students who have aptitudes and passion for learning subjects, not to train existing excellent students,” Thai said.

How to discover talented students then? Thai believes that it is necessary to organize many extracurricular activities at schools, such as ‘creative day’, organize exchanges between students and researchers, set up clubs to gather the student with the same passions, and organize competitions. 

Tia Sang