VietNamNet Bridge – The director of a local education and training department or headmasters of schools may be given the right to choose the textbooks to be used in teaching at local schools.

Under the draft, after the Minister of Education and Training sets standards for textbooks, and sets regulations for compiling, examining, approving, and using textbooks at schools, while directors of local education and training departments decide which textbooks to be used in teaching and learning at local schools (option 1), or headmasters of schools choose textbooks for their schools (option 2).

The suggestions were made after scientists, educators, teachers, and students made heavy criticisms on the currently used textbooks.

In 2008, the MOET for the first time conducted a national scale review on the curriculum and textbooks for general schools with the participation of 20,000 out of 35,000 schools across the country.

Deputy Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Vinh Hien said that the single sets of textbooks would be able to fit to all students who live in different localities of the country.

Educators have also expressed the same voice that the currently used textbooks cannot be used everywhere throughout the country, saying that it is necessary to have different textbooks for choices. The Deputy Headmaster of a primary school in Hanoi said that “As many students give up school and become tired of school, educators should reconsider if the textbooks, curriculum and teachers can attract students to schools.”

Meanwhile, at the conference discussing the solutions to minimize the drop-outs, Associate Professor Dr. Tran Xuan Nhi, Deputy Chairman of the Vietnam Study Encouragement Society, said that the MOET does not dare admit that the bad curriculum and textbooks are the main reason that causes students to drop-out.

Nhi also said that curriculum needs to be designed in a flexible way, so that students in difficult and favourable areas can follow the curriculum suitable to them.

Prime Minister and Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Thien Nhan, while answering to the questions raised by National Assembly’s deputies in the latest session, said that 80% of textbook compilers do not teach at general schools at the time of compiling, therefore, the textbooks may not have reasonable contents. Nhan said that it is advisable to invited scientists to give independent assessments so that Vietnam is able to adjust the textbooks and curriculum more quickly.

Currently, the Education Publishing House remains the only publisher which is authorized to print textbooks for all the class levels of general schools, while there are more than 50 publishing houses across the country.

In related news, Nhan has informed that the plan on renovating the tuition scheme has been approved by the Communist Party’s Politburo and it will be submitted to the National Assembly at the upcoming session in May 2009.

According to Nhan, in the last 15 years, Vietnam has been exempting tuition for primary education, while students of higher education levels have to pay tuition, but not at high levels, as the State still has been propping up 90% of tuition for general education and 60% of tuition for career education.

Nhan said that with the new tuition scheme, the tuition levels for general education will not be higher than 6% of average income of Vietnamese people, while the poor people will be exempted from tuition.

VietNamNet/VNE