LookAtVietnam – The educational system should seek to instil moral, ethical and aesthetic values in students alongside creativity and diligence, an expert said at a forum held last Friday in HCM City.

Students of the Viet Nam-Germany High School discuss keys of a just finished exam. Educators are advocating for a learning system that provides students with more ethical and aesthetic values together with other skills.

“Human resources needed for the future are people with high morals, abilities and good health.

“Teachers have to build educational programmes to ensure their students acquire these qualities,” he added.

They also needed to change teaching methods and make the classrooms a more interactive space where students were encouraged to share their ideas and raise questions, Minh said.

Students should be guided to study and work both in co-operation with their colleagues and on their own.

“For their part, teachers need to better plan their lessons and exams and appraise students more honestly,” he said.

Improved quality and credibility of assessments would help students identify weaknesses to overcome and strengths to build on.

However, this had not thus far been considered as one of the main components in teachers’ training, Minh pointed out.

Testing limitations

Students are typically assessed only through exams, but this can only be a partial effort.

There have been proposals that the department’s human resource management office take the responsibility for organising training courses lectured by professionals in assessment so the skills can be applied both in the recruitment of teachers and in student appraisals.

Minh called for changes in the curricula and textbook content to make them more interesting for both students and teachers.

Over the last several years, experts have made many changes to textbook content, making it more practical and less theoretical, but these have not proved highly effective in improving the quality of education, Minh said.

The main reason for this was that there was considerable overlap in content and the constant pressure of teaching and learning that leads to loss of interest in both teachers and students.

Smaller class sizes

More teaching to become more effective, schools should reduce their class sizes to a maximum of 30 students per class from the current 35-45 average, Minh said.

Schools also needed to have enough equipment and facilities including libraries, labs, playgrounds and computer rooms in order for students to have ideal conditions to study and entertain themselves.

Minh asked the department’s finance and planning office to speed up work for building more schools by attracting local and foreign investors.

Truong Tan Sang, a member of the Party Politburo, said that vocational training schools, especially in high-tech areas, need to be expanded in the city’s districts.

Other speakers at the forum called for policies to ensure all children attend kindergarten and for preferential policies for needy children so they do not drop out of school.

They said the Ministry of Education and Training’s policy to renovate the education sector has been carried out for the last 10 years, but has not made education effective enough.

They attributed this to a poor connection between training curricula and set targets as well as ineffective management in schools.

(Source: Viet Nam News)