VietNamNet Bridge - History teachers were shocked when they could not find history on the list of subjects for the general school basic curriculum.

The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has opened the draft program on the new basic curriculum for public opinion.

The draft shows, as commented by Giao Duc Viet Nam, that MOET is trying to ‘declare death’ for history as a learning subject for general education and remove it from high school finals and entrance exams to universities.

The newspaper also commented that history has never been so underestimated in comparison with other learning subjects.

Tran Trung Hieu, a history teacher from the Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted, in Nghe An province, in a letter to the editorial board, said the MOET draft was “anti-pedagogical”.

The draft listed social science subjects as follows: ‘Cuoc song quanh ta’ (Life around us) for first, second and third graders; ‘Tim hieu xa hoi’ (Learning about society) for fourth and fifth graders; ‘Khoa hoc xa hoi’ (Social sciences) for secondary and high schools; and history and geography for high school.

This means that history and geography will be taught as separate subjects at high school, while they would be integrated with other subjects, such as ‘the life around us’, ‘learning about society’ and ‘social sciences’.

Hieu said he does not understand why MOET could not understand the particularly important role of history in educating students about the patriotism, national tradition and help a lot in their personality formation.

“We, general school teachers, want to know who the members of the compilation board are, who the head of the compilation is. Don’t they know that history is a subject which teaches culture, tradition, patriotism and national pride?” Hieu wrote.

“If a student is not good at math, he may meet difficulties when calculating his wages or may not be able to convert dollar into Vietnam dong. But if he does not know Vietnamese history, he will not know about his ancestors and families,” he said.

Professor Pham Tat Dong, deputy chair of the Vietnam Study Encouragement Study, has proposed history as a compulsory learning subject in the general school curriculum, rather than an optional subject.

Dong noted that the majority of Vietnamese students do not like history because they think it boring. 

“What educators need to do is reform their teaching methods so that students like the subject,” he said. 

“It would be very dangerous if Vietnamese students turn their back to history,” he warned.

GDVN