Vietnam’s education sector must improve its management if it wants to raise standards, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan said at a meeting in Hanoi on July 29.

In the 2009-10 academic year, about 92.57 percent of high school students passed the graduation exam – 8.97 percent higher than in the previous school year.

High school principals around the country underwent re-training courses that focused on leadership, while education managers learned how to adapt to being financially independent.

He said the focus should be on implementing new programmes for pre-schools that included a combination of different teaching methods, the application of e-learning, extra-training for students who were performing badly and boosting the management skills of staff.

Mr. Nhan also urged the ministry to work with provincial authorities on developing schools for gifted students to provide high-quality human resources for the country’s development, and said greater emphasis should be placed on foreign-language learning.

Education and Training Deputy Minister Nguyen Vinh Hien told the meeting that up to 96.4 percent of pre-schools now apply information technology, while 82.8 percent are connected to the internet.

Secondary schools now meet universal standards, while more than half of all pre-schools have adopted educational programmes, he said.

However, despite improvements in education, Mr. Hien said, schools had yet to meet national development demand. He added that there was a teacher shortage, a lack of infrastructure, a high drop-out rate and too much emphasis placed on passive learning.

Source: VOV