VietNamNet Bridge – The Hanoi Education and Training Department has released a document, correcting the wrong number of illiterate people in Hanoi, which the department itself gave to press agencies at the end of October.

Pham Thi Hong Nga, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Education and Training Department

Every year, we make reports about the result of the education universalisation and re-illiteracy eradication for the people between the ages of 15-35. However, when reviewing the implementation of the project on building the learning society and developing community learning centres, the Ministry of Education and Training asked us to make reports about the number of illiterate people aged 36 and higher as well.

The annual figures in our report proved to coincide with the figures reported by districts. However, the typist made the only mistake when adding ‘2’ to the final result, which turned the real figure of 18,200 of illiterate people into 218,200 people.

The Hanoi Education and Training Department has hurriedly corrected the number of illiterate people in the capital city, which proves to be a sensitive issue, which might make people think that there something inexplicit here. What would you say about this?

It was the mistake of the typist, but we admit our mistake because we did not check the figure. I know, it is very difficult to explain now, and I know that the public may think we deliberately concealed the actual information. However, we still have to correct the fault by giving the real figure. We have worked with the districts’ education and training sub-departments to check the figures and made the new report about the illiteracy.

Did the figure of high illiteracy ratio in Hanoi at 218,000 people, or 200,000 higher than the actual figure, surprise you?

There were several reasons behind the case:

First, we were in a hurry when we were making the report to the ministry. In previous years, the ministry did not require the figures of illiterate people at the ages of 36 and higher, but it required the figure this year, which took us time to collect.

Second, we have been keeping a close watch over the illiterate people at the ages of 15-35 to fulfill the task of education universalisation. Meanwhile, it is of no use to reckon the number of illiterate people of over 35 years old, since the people are not the subjects for urgent and regular education. At the age of over 36, people do not have high capability and willingness for learning.

Therefore, we did not see anything abnormal with the report. Only when newspapers reported about the high number of illiterate people with the titles “Hanoi leading the country in illiteracy ratio,” did we start and find our mistake after checking the figure.

How did the Ministry of Education and Training response to the Hanoi report?

There are 63 provinces and cities, which means there are 63 reports, each of them is full of tables and figures. It is understandable that the ministry cannot verify all the figures, especially the ratios of illiteracy of people of more than 36 years old, which are not the subject for education universalisation.

The people at the ages of over 36 seem to be ignored in the projects or campaigns of illiteracy eradication and intellectual standard improvement. Do you think this comes contrary to our policy of building a learning society?

Though the people at the ages of 36 and over are not listed as the priority subjects and focus of education projects in the city, we have been trying to carry out projects to improve their ability by pushing up community learning centres.

Cam Quyen