Vietnam says “no” to non-full time university training?

VietNamNet Bridge – Non-full time university education modes have become more and more popular in the world, because they allow people to follow studies in flexible way. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, non-full time training has been filled with scorn.

In-service training – the child who has been denied

It is estimated that more than 40 percent of students nowadays are following in-service training courses. That explains why the decision by some provincial authorities to refuse in-service training graduates has vexed so many people.

In the thoughts of Vietnamese people, only those who fail the university entrance exams to follow full-time training, would have to study at in-service training courses to obtain university degrees. Therefore, the graduates of in-service training are believed as having lower qualifications than full-time training graduates.

In principle, the degree granted to in-service training graduates has the same value with the degree granted to full-time training graduates. However, some provinces still have ignored the current laws, stated that they will not recruit in-service graduates for their state agencies.

Nguyen Van Khoat, Director of the Ha Nam Education and Training Department, one of the localities that say “no” to in-service graduates, explained that the department has to set up specific requirements to ensure that it can find the best and most suitable officers for the schools in the province.

However, Khoat has affirmed that Nam Dinh does not say “no” to non-full time training, saying that it’s necessary to find out reasonable recruitment methods, which allow to bring opportunities to many candidates and find out the most capable ones.

In-service training goes the wrong way

According to Professor Lam Quang Thiep, Vietnam should not follow the idea that it would be better to remove non-full time training modes, because the modes can help people approach to university education to have better knowledge.

Thiep said the problem of in-service training now is that it has been going the wrong way. Therefore, the thing that needs to be done is to choose a right way to follow, not to think of removing the training mode from the national training system.

The blunder of the in-service training, according to Thiep, is that the teaching technology applied for full-time training has also been applied for in-service training as well, while the latter needs a specific technology.

Non-full time training courses mostly have special targeted students. The learners of the courses need to spend time on self-learning. Therefore, the curriculums need to be designed to fit the self-learners. However, the requirement has not been met so far.

Therefore, in order to improve the quality of in-service training, it is necessary to design reasonable curriculums, prepare good materials for students. It is also necessary to apply a new method in assessing the students’ learning capability.

Commenting about open universities, the main non-full time training service providers, Professor Thiep said that the “open schools” are now operating as “closed schools.” In Vietnam, the Hanoi and HCM City Open Universities are the biggest schools which undertake the duties of providing distance training courses.

In principle, open universities need to be equipped well with modern technologies to provide lessons to learners who do not go to class every day. However, since the two schools do not have necessary technical equipment and reasonable technologies fitting the open education mode, they have become the “closed schools.”

Director of the University Education Department of the Ministry of Education and Training Bui Anh Tuan has said that a conference on education renovation would be organized in October or November, where how to improve in-service training quality would be discussed.

Nguyen Huong

English teachers necessarily need to meet international standards?

VietNamNet Bridge – It’s very difficult for English teachers to meet the international standards, and it would be not easy for the Ministry of Education and Training to standardize the English teaching staff. Meanwhile, experts believe that meeting international standards should not be an imperative requirement.

English teachers also have to learn English

Hong Hanh, an English teacher of the Cat Linh Primary School in Hanoi, has been recognized as meeting the B2 standard after following the 3-month intensive training course organized by the Hanoi Education and Training Department (HETD).

Hanh said she is one of the luckiest teachers who passed the English skill test. She attended a lot of training courses to improve the knowledge, including overseas ones.

Therefore, Hanh had met B1 standard before going to the HETD’s training course. After the course, where she made a lot of exertion, Hanh and some other colleagues have met the B2 standard.

An English teacher at a high school in HCM City said that it would be not too difficult for primary and secondary school teachers to obtain FCE (First Certificate in English) of the Cambridge University, which is equal to 6.0 IELTS. However, it would be a difficult task for high school teachers, especially the old ones, to obtain 7.5 IELTS.

It would be not a big problem for the teachers who have just finished university education. Meanwhile, the old teachers, who have lost some knowledge over the last many years, would find it difficult to review lessons for attending exams.

Dung, a teacher of the Thanh Cong B Primary School in Hanoi, said she has been teaching English for the last 20 years, during which she attended a lot of training courses. However, she admitted that she would have to learn very hard to have B1 degree.

A primary school teacher in HCM City said she feels worried stiff about the upcoming exam to obtain FCE, because the knowledge she received at school proves to be not enough for English communication.

Is it necessary for teachers to meet international standards?

This is the question raised by Hoang Ngoc Hung, a teacher of the High School for Talented Students under the HCM City National University.

Analysts have also agreed with Hung that the goals of the foreign language teaching program by 2020 prove to be overly high, while the conditions for teaching English in Vietnam remain very poor.

The teachers and students in rural and remote areas are also required to speak standard English, while they may not have any opportunity to meet and talk to any foreigners in their lives. Should they be required to have standard English?

“I think the goals of the program are far away and they seem to be a little bit luxurious in the Vietnamese conditions,” he said.

He believes that in order to upgrade the teachers’ English skills, it would be better to follow a long term plan to improve the situation step by step, instead of providing crash training to teachers, thus putting them under a hard pressure.

The list of the lecturers who still cannot meet B2 and C1 standards has been posted on the website of a faculty of the Hanoi National University. Fifteen out of the 27 lecturers who attended the English skill test on May 28, 2011, could not meet the B2 and C1 standards.

So, is it necessary to require general school teachers to meet international standards, while the lecturers, who once trained the teachers, still cannot meet the standards themselves?

Nguyen Hien

Vietnamese students good or bad?

VietNamNet Bridge – It’s impossible to find the answer to the question when considering the results of the two latest important national exams--the high school final exams and university entrance exams.

The Ministry of Education and Training in early August was glad to inform that more than 90 percent of Vietnamese students have passed the finals. Even remote or mountainous areas have also reported the high percentages of students passing the exams.

The figures obviously show that Vietnamese students have good learning ability.

However, the same conclusion would not be made if reviewing the university entrance exams. Thousands of university entrance exam papers were given zero mark just for history exam alone. Especially, the public has been stunned by the information that the students, who got high marks from the high school finals, received five marks only for three university entrance exam subjects.

Universities have also reported that thousands of zero marks have been given to the examinees, who showed that they even did not have basic knowledge about the subjects.

Who to believe?

The Ministry of Education and Training many times affirmed before the exams took place that the questions would not be too difficult. In other words, the students, who finish the high school curriculum, would never get zero or one marks.

However, more than 1000 examinees out of the 2600 examinees to the Vinh City University of Technique Education got zero or one for mathematics. The number of students getting zero or one mark from the history exams to the Hanoi University of Education reportedly accounted for ¼ of the total examinees.

800 students attending the exams to the school got either zero or one, while 180 got zero. Meanwhile, nearly 1800 students got three or lower marks for history.

The Hanoi University for Social Sciences and Humanity has reported that 600 students got zero or one for history out of the 3900 examinees.

200 out of the 1000 examinees, who attended the exams to the Nam Dinh-based University of Technique Education, got 10 marks or higher for three subjects. Meanwhile, Nam Dinh always tops the list of the provinces with high percentages of students passing final exams.

Professor Do Thanh Binh from the History Faculty of the Hanoi University Education said that the exam questions had different difficulty levels.

He believes that with the 2012’s history exam questions, the students with just basic knowledge, not excellent ones, should get at least five marks. Meanwhile, those who got one or two might even did not have basic knowledge.

Meanwhile, Dang Quang Minh, a lecturer of the same school, has affirmed that the 2012 history exam questions were the easiest in the last five years

As for mathematics, teachers believe that the students with average level would be able to solve at least two questions. They said that if students got zero or one mark for mathematics, they could not have passed the high school finals.

In Vietnam, the national university entrance exam is considered the most serious exam which can truly reflect the actual ability of students. Meanwhile, problems have been existing in many other exams, especially the finals. The strict regulations that need to be applied for exams have not been respected at the finals, thus allowing students to cheat at the exams, and leading to unreliable results about students’ ability.

Professor Van Nhu Cuong, a well-known educator, has commented that the zero marks show the big gaps in the students’ knowledge.

Cuong believes that it would be better to remove the high school final exam, if the exam cannot truly reflect the real ability of students, while it is always very costly to organize the exams.

Compiled by Thu Uyen