The standards for 5-year-old children, drafted by the Ministry of Education and Training, which has been opened for collecting opinions, has raised controversy.

For example, in physical development, 5-year-old children need to be able to run 150 meters continuously and move backwards for 5 meters in a straight line, as well as button and unbutton jackets. In terms of feelings and social relationship development, children need to know whether they are male or female and have suitable behaviors, while they also need to be able to restrain negative feelings.

However, Nguyen Thi Hong Van, Teacher of X Kindergarten in Phu Nhuan district in HCM City, said that the drafted standards prove to be unrealistic

Van said that the requirement that a 5-year-old child needs to be able to move back at least 5 meters in a straight line needs reconsideration. The items seem to be easy to be implemented, but in fact, not all children of the same age can do the same tasks.

Le Thu, Pharmacist, the owner of a pharmacy shop on Dinh Tien Hoang Street in HCM City, said that the drafted standards prove to be overly high. Thu said that her son, who is considered to be growing well in comparison with other children of the same age, still cannot meet some of the standards. For example, the child does not have the habit of moving up onto steps with left and right feet in turns, while he always moves with the same foot onto two consecutive steps and the same foot onto two other steps.

Besides, Thu believes that it is not always a good thing to record assessments of children in accordance with the standards to the student school record book.

People have agreed that the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) needs to set up standards that will serve as benchmarks for growing and developing children. However, they said that the ministry needs to work with relevant agencies, which have research on health, nutrition and physiological psychology, and to set up reasonable standards. Meanwhile, the drafted standards have been thought as of as not being built upon fact.

Simple of complicated?

Van Dinh Ung, Deputy Chief Secretariat under MOET said that the ministry’s officials began developing the standards in 2005. The compilers organized many seminars and referred to foreign documents before finishing the draft standards.

Tran Thi Oanh, who has been working as a teacher for the last 17 years, said that previously, 5-year-old children did not meet the development level of modern children, both in terms of physical and brain development. Therefore, Oanh said that it is necessary to build new standards for 5-year-old children.

However, Oanh has pointed out that several standards prove to be too simple. For example, children need to be able to button and unbutton their jackets, as well as hold a rice bowl and feed themselves.

Meanwhile, Oanh said that it is very difficult to assess children in accordance with some standards. Children at the age of 5 need to ‘not to follow and receive gifts from strange people,’ and know their addresses and telephone numbers. Oanh said that this will still depend on the teaching of their parents, not only teachers at schools.

What worries teachers most is the assessing of children. Phan Thi Tam, Head of the Hoa Sen Kindergarten, said that the assessing will take a lot of time.

VietNamNet/Tien phong