VietNamNet Bridge – The Deputy Minister of Education and Training, Banh Tien Long, declared twelve outstanding events in 2008 in his meeting with the press on the afternoon of January 13.

For the 2008-2009 year, the movement of building up friendly schools and producing active students was kicked off. The Ministry of Education and Training has taken responsibility to take care for five historical and cultural vestiges. 2,200 general schools have registered to join the movement, and 2,816 historical and cultural vestiges have been registered to be taken care by the schools four months after the movement was kicked off.

2. Building up the 2009-2020 education development strategy.

Since August 2007, the ministry began building up the strategy on education and training development with the participation of twenty-seven groups of researchers who are scientists, educators and education managers.

The draft strategy defines six achievements and five shortcomings of Vietnam’s education, showing six viewpoints for education development, putting forward three goals and eleven solutions, including two breakthrough solutions to develop education by 2020.

The draft strategy on education development was put into public for collecting opinions.

The Ministry of Education and Training in late February 2009 will complete the opinion collection and wrap up the draft strategy for submission to the Government.

3. Training in accordance with the society’s demand.

2008 marked a milestone in pushing up the training in accordance with the society’s demand.

MOET joined forces with ministries, branches, and the Hanoi and HCM City People’s Committees to organize seven national workshops on training in accordance with the demand from the branches of tourism, farm produce processing and healthcare. Nearly five hundred contracts on training and using human resources were signed between training establishments and enterprises.

4. Building up the project on renovating the finance management scheme for 2008-2012, continuing the program on loaning to poor students.

One of the key points of the renovated finance management scheme is the new principle on defining tuitions at different education levels. Tuitions for pre-education and general education will not be higher than 6% of the average income of local households.

By December 31, 2008, 1,210,000 students could borrow VND 9.8 trillion to serve their studies.

5. Reviewing the project on developing minorities’ boarding schools.

6. Raising money to help all Vietnamese students to have clothes and textbooks to go to school.

By January 7, 2009, over VND 17 billion had been raised. Besides, there had been over one million textbooks and notebooks, 31,000 kg of clothes, nearly 400,000 trousers and 15,000 other items.

7. Improving the training quality.

On January 5, for the first time, the Ministry of Education and Training organized the national conference on appraising the education quality, which gathered four hundred participants.

On August 30, the ministry organized the conference reviewing the operation of universities and colleges established in 1998. In the last ten years, twenty-three universities have been established, fifty-five colleges have been upgraded into universities, and 107 vocational schools have been upgraded into junior colleges.

8. Strengthening the application of IT and associated with administration renovation.

9. Successfully organizing sports events.

10. Establishing Vietnam-Germany University, successfully organizing the 39^th International Physics Olympiad.

11. The country’s President granted the titles of People’s Teacher and Teachers of Merit to the highest-ever number of teachers.

917 teachers were granted the titles, including 101 people’s teachers. As such, in the last ten years, from 1998-2008, 354 people’s teachers and 5,091 teachers of merit were recognized.

12. The 13^th Vietnam Education’s Trade Union Congress was successfully organized, which approved five action plans.

Bao Anh