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What’s in a name? Gifted school contemplates change

Published: 11/01/2010 05:00

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LookAtVietnam – Hanoi authorities plan to change the name of Hanoi-Amsterdam Gifted School, but the school’s teachers and students are unhappy.

The Hanoi-Amsterdam Gifted School
In 2008, the city began building a new school on a large plot of land in Cau Giay District for the 1000th anniversary of Thang Long - Hanoi. Once construction is completed, the Hanoi-Amsterdam Gifted School will leave its current location for the new campus.

Hanoi-Amsterdam Gifted School also plans to change its name, an idea from city leaders. They believe that a Hanoi school with such outstanding characteristics should possess a more significant and relevant name. “Thang Long” (the old name for Hanoi meaning ‘rising dragon’) has been suggested.

A Hanoi Education and Training Department official told VietNamNet that they will change the name to ‘Truong Chuyen Hanoi’ (Hanoi Gifted School), and then keep the English name unchanged.

If so, Hanoi will have a school with the “Hanoi” name, while retaining the international brand name of “Hanoi-Amsterdam Gifted School.”

The name change has not been welcomed by teachers and students.

Deputy Headmaster of the Hanoi-Amsterdam Gifted School, Le Thi Oanh, who has worked there since the school’s founding, reported that in September 2008, the school received a message about the planned name change. A meeting of 100 teachers and officers gathered and decided that they wished to keep the original name.

Oanh argues that the school’s name has historical significance. In December 1972, hundreds of US B52s bombed Hanoi and brought about severe devastation. Amsterdam’s mayor, Dr. I. Samkalden, called on Dutch citizens for donations to build a large, new school in Hanoi after the war to help with rebuilding. The mayor realized his dream and Hanoi-Amsterdam Gifted School, established to educate Hanoi’s most excellent students, opened in September 1985.

“Hanoi-Amsterdam has become a very famous education brand over the last 25 years not only in Vietnam, but in the world as well,” Oanh remarked.

The information about the change of the school’s name is now a hot topic on the Hanoi-Amsterdam school’s student forum.

Most students want to preserve the name. Some commented that the name is part of their school pride. The school is now abbreviated as “Ams,” while teachers and students of the school are called “Amsers.”

Ams alumni Tran Quang Hung is now student in the US at Bowdoin University. He credits his scholarship to study in the US to his famous school. “Ams” is famous and well known by many universities in the world and Hung stressed that if someone says he is a student of Ams, he will catch the eye of foreign schools.

Pham Van Dai, Deputy Director of Hanoi-Amsterdam School, who is now also the Deputy Director of the Hanoi Education and Training Department, agrees and does not support the name change.

“The brand name has been built up with great effort over the last 25 years, Dai maintained. “If we change, these 25 years of work will have been in vain.”

Bao Anh


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What’s in a name? Gifted school contemplates change - Education - News |  vietnam travel company

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