Mr. Nguyen Ke Hao, an authority of Ministry of Education, mentioned that let children grow naturally is better for them rather than imposing adults’ thoughts on them.

“I should write what your teacher wants. It is better because I can get a better mark and do not have to do it again.” Mrs. Thu An’s daughter’s saying.

This 8-year girl had to write an essay “talking about one of good things you did” many times because she talked about a real activity as “helping her mother to do housework” instead of recommended topics: “returning money to the owner, taking care of mother having illness....” After 4 times, she gave up and accepted to “imagine”.

Is it because of teachers’ conception...?

Mrs. Thu An has a confusion that the inefficient way does not help children to think creatively but encourages them to give up and make an agreement, then they will become liars.

Vietnamese education system is still poor due to the inefficient methods and inactive teachers. “It is not easy to find appropriate teachers because most of them still teach “mechanically”. We have to look deeply at the reasons the solve it.”, Le Tue Minh said.

…or the conception of the whole system

The story of grade-3 girl above is not hard to find. In fact, it is popular in Vietnam, since grade 1.

If a student uses the “model”, he will get a better mark than the one who chooses another way. Then the quality is not always true. It is not a mistake of an individual teacher, but the mistake of the system, the thoughts, and the methods applied in many years. More importance, the problems will be repeated over generations.

Mrs. Tran Cam Tu worked as teacher at Trung Vuong Secondary School, then, she moved to teaching at international schools such as Hanoi Academy & International School of Singapore. With many years of teaching experience and participate in the evaluation program of the Ministry of Education, she shared one other barriers make efforts to break the education imposed system has not successful.

The advantage of international schools is their modern facilities; however, the orientated curriculum is more important.

The reasons of Vietnamese education system’s problem are because of 2 factors above: facilities and the curriculum. Moreover, there are too many students in classes, compared to other countries. In Singapore, Australia, the number of students in a single class is about 25, whereas there are 45 or in some cases, 60 students in Vietnam.

“Evolution is not easy to be successful. The solution is to improve facilities, quality of management and teaching, and assessment systems. If we can do that, it will create the motivation of individual teachers to work better, build up the new generations”, Le Tue Minh said.

Duy Khánh - Hiền Nguyễn (Source vietnamnet.vn)

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