In Vietnam, the students, who follow distance learning
courses, still have to come to classes. It is because of the lack of school
materials.

Distance learning has been attracting an increasingly high number of learners,
because this kind of training allows learners to obtain university degree, while
it does not set high requirements on students. Especially, learners do not have
to attend the national university entrance exams, which allow students to easily
register the study branches they want.

However, educators say distance education is facing too many difficulties.

Very few materials

In principle, when following distance education, learners mostly have to teach
themselves with the assistance of school materials. In the digital area, with
the support of Internet, there are many methods to deliver teaching, including
video and audio tapes, CD-Rom, software products, personal audio and video
media… However, learners still complain that they have been seriously lacking
school materials.

Phan Huy Cung, Director of the Distance Learning Center of the Can Tho
University, said the center has been allowed to provide distance education in
seven branches and three majors. The training curriculums for distance education
are similar with the curriculums for regular training with 112 credits per
curriculum.

Meanwhile, to date, the center has had only 153 materials compiled under the
mode of learning guide documents, and has delivered 41 textbooks for distance
education learners. Cung admitted that such a modest number of materials are
still not enough to serve learning.

The Distance Education Center under the Hue city City University has been well- known
as one of the schools which first launched distance education courses which has
trained more than 85,000 students in 16 majors.

However, Nguyen Van Hoa, the center’s Director, said that the center has only
400 textbooks compiled specifically for distance learning system, which he
admitted that cannot meet the training requirements. Therefore, distance
education students sometimes have to use the textbooks designed for regular
training.

Ho Huu Tri, Director of the Distance Education Center under the HCM City Open
University, said that his students now mostly learn with the lecture outlines
provided by lecturers.

The updated material repository on Internet reserved for distance education
training is clearly an important source of materials for students to access.
However, the number of documents for reference updated by the schools remains
limited.

The website of the branch of the Binh Duong University has updated 71 summarized
lectures, seven materials for graduation review and two internship guide
documents. Similarly, the total number of materials at the Hue Distance Learning
Center remains modest at 60.

Lacking experiences

Cung said that distance learning center has been facing financial problems. The
Can Tho University has to advance one billion dong to the center to fund the
material compilation. However, it is not easy to compile textbooks for distance
education, because this is a new kind of training. Meanwhile, most of the
lecturers come from regular training, who still lack experiences in distance
training.

Meanwhile, educators understand well that distance education learners need the
textbooks specifically designed for them. It is because while following distance
learning, students have to spend much time on learning themselves.

The lack of materials has led to the fact that students of distance learning
systems now still have to go to classrooms.

Hoa admitted that the “face-to-face training” has still been applied, since many
students in remote areas cannot access the materials on Internet or TVs due to
the lack of equipments. Meanwhile, Cung said students have to gather on
Saturdays and Sundays to listen to lectures.

Source: Nguoi lao dong