VietNamNet Bridge – Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan on June 3 said that his ministry is preparing for the creation of a new curriculum for general education for after 2015.

Prior to that, Dung mentioned the necessity of creating a curriculum for general education which is not very different from others in the world and stable for at least 10 years. He said this needs to be done before Vietnam thinks about allowing a wide variety of textbooks.

In the reply, Nhan said that the curriculum for general education needs to fit Vietnam’s circumstances and the conditions for implementation, such as the teachers’ qualifications, learning time, material facilities and teaching aids. Moreover, the curriculum also needs to be close to the general education curriculums being applied in developed countries and in the world.

“The Ministry of Education and Training is considering and preparing for the building up of a new curriculum for general education to be applied after 2015,” Nhan said.

“The collection and study of the curriculums of other countries are being carried out,” he added.

The head of the Ministry of Education and Training said that he will ask education ministries in Asian and European countries to provide consultancy experts and documents on education curriculums to serve as reference documents for Vietnam’s education curriculum committee.

In addition, the ministry plans to send staffs abroad to study compilation and appraisal to serve the building up of the new curriculum and textbooks.

National Assembly Deputy Bui Thi Tuyet Minh, who is concerned about the overloaded curriculum for general school students and about mistakes in textbooks, asked the minister what he would do to tackle the problems.

Nhan admitted that in 2008, after verifying and reviewing the education curriculum and textbooks, his ministry found out a lot of shortcomings in the curriculum and textbooks.

Nhan said that the ministry will take actions to fix the errors in textbooks, while it has opened a column to collect opinions and suggestions for textbooks on the ministry’s official website and carried out measures on intensifying the teaching of English to ethnic minority students.

Moreover, the ministry plans to renovate methods of testing students. Examination questions will be designed in a way that students do not have to learn many events and figures by heart and their creativity will be spurred. The ministry has also promised to prepare necessary conditions so that primary school students can go to class both in the morning and afternoon.

VietNamNet/VNE