VietNamNet Bridge – Parents do not place high hopes in the Ministry of Education and Training’s (MOET) initiative on re-compiling textbooks. At least, that’s the case for parents who know how the textbook compilation process works.

But parents may not even be the strongest critics of the compilation procedure for general education textbooks. The compilers themselves have commented that the procedure they have been told to follow is an absurd one.

The late Professor Phan Trong Luan, who was the chief editor of advanced-level literature textbooks, once said that his authors had been ordered to finish compiling textbooks even though many issues had still been unresolved and under discussion.

Some literature experts believed that general school students only needed to learn pieces of works, or texts, with no need to learn about authors. It then took several days to discuss the issue.

Ngo Tran Ai, general director of the Vietnam Education Publishing House, agrees that Vietnam has been following a peculiar process in compiling textbooks.

“Textbooks’ authors were given a so-called ‘frame curriculum’, called the ‘backbone’, and told to flesh it out to create a book,” Ai said. “And only after the book came out, did the curriculum programmer set about to build a standard curriculum”.

“This absurd compilation process explains why there always exist disagreements between textbook compilers and curriculum programmers,” he said.

Professor Nguyen Khac Phi, former chief editor of the Vietnam Education Publishing House, also said that in principle, textbooks need to be compiled based on the curricula, which should serve as the frameworks. Or, to put it simply, the curriculum must come before the textbook. However, in Vietnam, the process works in the opposite direction.

Commenting on the process, Professor Tran Dinh Su, chief author of literature textbooks for advanced students, said the curricula do not play any important role in ensuring that the compilation stays on the right track.

The problem has also been attributed to the fact that there is no “conductor” that can conduct the orchestra of textbook compilers.

MOET, in its latest report about the education curriculum renovation, shines a light on the absurdity of the past procedures. Textbooks for primary education were compiled in 1996, while compilation of secondary school textbooks was completed in 1998, two years later. However, only in 2000 did the ministry set out to build a master plan on curriculum and textbook renovation for general education.

As a result, there is no continuity among the textbooks for general, secondary and high education. High school students sometimes feel bored because they have to relearn lessons they once took in secondary school.

Dr Nguyen Huy Doan, chief author of some math textbooks, said that only after the textbooks were published and adopted by general schools, did the MOET instruct the Education Research Institute to “get the curricula of the primary, secondary and high education in sync”.

“This is not a scientific method,” he commented, adding that the changeable curricula and textbooks make students feel “insecure”, because their efforts today may prove to be in vain once the curricula change.

Thanh Mai