LookAtVietnam – The 125 criteria for five-year-olds released recently by the Ministry of Education and Training has drawn both opposition and support from parents, teachers and child experts.

Kids play games in Ha Noi’s Thong Nhat Park. The Ministry of Education and Training has drawn out a draft of development criteria for five-year old children.

The draft proposal for the standards, issued last week, consists of 29 criteria with 125 figures. These are divided into four categories, including physical; emotional and social relations; language and communication skills; awareness development and readiness for studying.

Those who oppose the criteria said many were unrealistic and stressful for both children and parents, while those in support argued there was a need for such standards.

The criteria

The criteria covering physical development requires children aged five to be able to run 150m without stopping and jump at least 50cm high with two legs. Daily personal tasks like washing up, bathing, taking exercise are also included.

Requirements covering emotional and social relations development include the the ability to know their sex and have suitable behaviours, as well as knowing different emotions like happiness, anger, fear, surprise, embarrassment and how to express their emotions.

On language and communication development, the criteria are that children aged five should know the nuance of words and how to start a conversation in different ways.

Awareness development and readiness for studying criteria states that five-year-olds should know the use of common materials and show their creativeness in games or music.

The ministry said the standards were not too high and what’s more a child did not have to meet all of the criteria.

Various opinions

Many parents, however, were worried their children would not meet the standards.

“I was shocked when I read the criteria,” To Thi Bich Lien, mother of a five-year-old girl in northern Vinh Phuc Province said. My daughter is rather intelligent and in good condition but she only meets about 70 per cent of these standards.

“How will other children in remote areas or those with difficulties fare?” she said.

Other agree, saying many of the criteria were too difficult to reach at the age.

“Being able to run 150m continuously is too hard for a five-year-old child,” Doan Mai Huong, a resident of Cat Linh Street, in Ha Noi said. “My son couldn’t do it.”

Hoang Yen, a resident of Thanh Xuan District in Ha Noi, said many criteria depended on whether the child was gifted, such as the ability to remember the rhythm of music, to make up new lyrics for a familiar song or to change the details of familiar stories.

“Each child has his or her own way to grow up and their own interests in different types of arts. Why do we impose such criteria on them?” she said.

Ha Noi National University doctor of psychology Tran Thu Huong said some of the criteria were too high.

“Asking five-year-old children to have suitable behaviours and find solutions for their conflicts as well as express suitable emotions in certain situations is too much,” she said.

“We should let them grow naturally and just give them guidelines. A rather strict and tight education scheme would make children meet such requirements, but only a few, not the majority of them,” Huong said.

Nguyen Ke Hao, former head of the Department of Primary Education of the Ministry of Education and Training, said some of the criteria should be pruned off and only simple and suitable standards should be included.

The standards do have their supporters, however, with many opinions in favour of formal criteria.

Among the backers is Ha Noi University of Education Dr Nguyen Cong Khanh who said such criteria were necessary when many other countries were applying similar criteria.

“I support them. The set is drafted fairly carefully and meticulously,” he said.

“The set aims to educate a child in a more comprehensive way, from physically to intellectually and in social relations. Parents should use it as a base,” he said.

However, it still had some criteria that needed to be made more flexible. For example, the requirement to be able to run 150m continuously should be changed to be able to run tens of metres to a hundred meters.

Parents should not be too worried because the criteria had been drafted to act as a signpost for the education of children so they could meet the criteria.

“It’s quite normal if a child does not meet one or more criteria,” Khanh said.

Nevertheless, he suggested the ministry should take the opinions of parents, teachers and experts before applying the standards.

Ha Noi resident Nguyen Khanh Thuy also agreed with the criteria.

“These criteria are not too high and they don’t require a child to meet all of them,” she said.

“It is good to have such criteria. The country needed a future generation to have good physical health and brain,” Thuy said.

The criteria are now open for public opinions after which necessary changes will be made.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News