VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnamese now feel pessimistic than ever before about its innovation ranking. A lot of people have called on to look at the situation realistically and think about what to do to improve the current grade.

In 2011, Vietnamese people all felt glad when the country jumped to the 51st position in the global innovation index (GII) which ranks the innovation of 125 countries.

Just one year later, Vietnamese people were stunned when hearing that it has fallen to the 76th position among 141 surveyed countries in the GII. However, the information did not surprise many people, who said that if reviewing Vietnam’s grades in the GII since 2007, one would see that the position of Vietnam has been on the decrease.

The ranking for Vietnam means that Vietnam now stands in the second half of the GII, or below the average line. Professor Dr Tran Xuan Hoai, a scientist, has warned that if Vietnam continues staying around there, it may be listed as an intellectual disability nation.

Hoai, on his article published on VietNamNet, pointed out that the Vietnam’s falls in the GII grades could not be contributed to the low intelligence level of Vietnamese people, but should be blamed on the problems in the state management and human resource development.

Hoang Luong, a VietNamNet’s reader, in the email sent to the editorial board, expressed his pessimism about the creativeness, thinking and the management system of Vietnamese people, saying that the low ranking in GII is not a surprise at all.

Tong Van Viet, another reader, also said that the problem has been seen by every Vietnamese. “We are reduced in many fields. Education is the backbone of the society. With the current big problems in the education, the grade fall is completely foreseeable,” he wrote.

“Our education does not encourage students’ creativeness, while it just simply tells students to follow others and imitate others,” Thanh, a university student said.

Where’s the key?

A paradox exists that Vietnam’s grades have fallen in the rankings by international organizations, even though it has made heavier investment in the education and human resource development.

More and more Vietnamese students go abroad to follow university and higher education, where they are always recognized as the best students. More and more schools for the gifted have been set up, where students are provided special education curriculums to become the talents of the country. Especially, more and more foreign universities have arrived in Vietnam to join forces with domestic schools to train students.

Nhat Linh, a reader, has affirmed that Vietnam does not lack talents, but talented people do not have the opportunities to show their creativeness in Vietnam, where a reasonable mechanism on human resource has been existing more many years.

“In such organizations like in Vietnam, creativeness seems to be an overly luxurious thing,” he said.

Vietnamese people take pride of their intelligence. However, Vietnam still stands behind other nations at international students’ Olympiad. Information technology engineers believe that they are very clever. However, to date, no valuable invention by Vietnamese engineers has been made public.

People call on to change the way of thinking

All Vietnamese people have agreed that education should be the sector that needs renovation first.

“It’s necessary to eliminate the problems in education,” Linh said.

Vietnamese people would march forward and become creative if they can be encouraged with reasonable mechanisms. However, too many things need to be done in order to set up the reasonable mechanisms to encourage people.

Nguyen Huong