Education ministry follows up on textbook reformation
01-AUG-2008 Intellasia | Thanh Nien
Aug 1, 2008 - 7:00:00 AM
|
|
A standardised curriculum should inform the writing of textbooks, say educational experts.
The Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) is holding an online forum discussing textbooks and curriculum on its website portal as part of its ongoing efforts to reform textbooks and curriculum in all grade levels.
Textbook and curriculum contents of subjects like foreign languages, biology and physics are too heavy and academic for most students, a local newspaper quoted MoET deputy minister Nguyen Vinh Hien as saying on Monday.
They are especially challenging for students from ethnic minority communities and disadvantaged areas, he said.
For example, the physics taught in high schools is primarily classical physics, while history is mainly concerned with memorising armies, battles and revolutions instead of delving into economy, culture and society.
Le Ba Trong, representative of Hanoi-based Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Association (VUSTA), said some subjects' curriculums are given inadequate attention.
One of the reasons why students often get low marks in history examinations is that the subject only accounts for a small proportion of the curriculum, he said.
The process of establishing a curriculum and writing textbooks also needs attention, according to educational experts.
One textbook is often written by too many people with sections divided between different authors, which leads to repetition or inconsistencies, experts said.
Nguyen Minh Thuyet, head of the Committee on Assessing High School Literature under MoET, said it is illogical to derive a standard curriculum based on textbook contents.
The better way, according to him, is to first set up standard curriculum as a foundation and guide for writing textbooks.
The government should control the curriculum and not allow for deviances from standard and required knowledge, said Dao Van Phuc, chair of the Committee on Assessing Grade 12's Physics textbook under MoET.
"Many sets of textbooks should be available rather than just one big book," he said.
"Teachers should have the right to choose from a range of textbooks to serve their instructional agenda."
The Education Publishing House has the sole rights to publish all school textbooks nationwide.
From 2002 to June 30, 2006, the government publisher printed more than 821 million copies, with an average annual revenue of nearly dong 900 billion (US$56 million).
Due to its monopoly and the lack of private competition to produce textbooks, there is little incentive to improve textbook quality.
Nguyen Minh Hung, head of the Secondary School Education Office under the central Da Nang City Department of Education and Training, said a variety of textbooks is needed to meet the teaching needs for different areas.
"Although we tell teachers not to consider textbook contents as the "law" [meaning they have to stick by the books], examinations and the assessment of students' performance are still rigidly based on textbook contents," Hung said.
These ideas have been brought up before, yet textbooks remain flawed despite corrections and modifications, a local newspaper quoted VUSTA's Trong as saying.
MoET has started to revise textbooks for students from grades 1-11 in 2002.
But according to some teachers the revised editions are still impractical.
Way forward
MoET opened the forum www.diendan.edu.net.vn on July 7 to gather ideas and feedback on the issue of curriculum and textbooks.
The Education Publishing House, the departments of Primary Education and Secondary Education, and the Vietnam Institute for Sciences and Education are supposed to contribute feedback within 20 days.
The ministry will then summarise the ideas and carry out those of merit.
This is the second action MoET has taken in an effort to reform textbooks and curriculum.
It had initially asked 64 departments of education and training nationwide to report on advantages and disadvantages of textbooks and curriculum in March.
After gathering the reports, MoET announced some solutions in late May.
The ministry plans to assess curriculum and textbooks in the next two-years and establish a standard curriculum scheduled for application after 2010.
It also plans to have new sets of textbooks written based on the standard curriculum.
Local educational departments will be able to assess and choose which sets of textbooks are most suitable for teaching their students.
|
 |
|
Advertising
