4,000 billion VND to make electronic textbooks?

The information was released on the afternoon of August 18, at the workshop “Pilot project for fundamental and comprehensive innovation of primary education from grades 1 to 3 in Ho Chi Minh City in the 2014-2015 school year”. If approved, this project will need 4,000 billion VND to implement.

Ms. Le Thi Ngoc Diep: The cost needs to be carefully calculated, especially so that parents can pay in long-term installments.

The pilot project of fundamental and comprehensive innovation in primary education (Electronic textbooks and tablet project) for grades 1 to 3 in Ho Chi Minh City is awaiting approval from the Ministry of Education and Training.

According to the plan, the funding source for implementation will be from the city budget and socialized sources. Of which, the budget of 4,000 billion is calculated as follows:

Equipping software equipment for each shared classroom costs about 262 million/room.

Equipping tablets for students and teachers, each tablet costs around 5 million/device. Investing in equipment for professional rooms, each school is equipped with an online meeting room with a budget of 1.1 billion including a video conferencing system, a shared teaching equipment set, a meeting room with the function of distance learning and online meetings with other units is (451 schools equivalent to 496.1 billion)

Funding for training and development of management staff and teachers: 2,255 management staff will be trained for 1 week, 10,389 teachers will be trained for 2 weeks.

Principals can choose countries like Korea and Japan for training with a budget of 250 million/person/course (4 weeks); Vice principals and teachers directly teaching will receive on-site training, the training cost is included in the total investment budget for equipment for schools; English teachers will be trained by inviting native teachers to train and issue international certificates with a cost of 55 million/person/course (4-month course). First, we will train 952 managers and train 50% of teachers teaching from grades 1 to 3.

The cost of surveys conducted at educational management facilities and primary schools is 1.095 billion; the cost of building new model primary school standards is 2.2 billion; the cost of building electronic textbook programs and training programs is 1 billion....

Many concerns

According to the project, implementing electronic textbooks, the entire current textbook program will be included in textbooks using 3D technology, installed on tablet devices for students and teachers to use. When there is a request to modify or supplement the content, the whole will be reinstalled, reducing printing, publishing and purchasing costs for parents and students.

Currently, the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City has submitted plans to the City People's Committee and is taking the plans out to widely solicit opinions from management staff, teachers and parents for widespread implementation in practice. However, many delegates attending the workshop expressed concerns.

Ms. Le Thi Ngoc Diep - Principal of Nguyen Binh Khiem Primary School (District 1) expressed concern about the internet, whether it can meet the needs of many students using the internet at the same time?

"In addition, the budget is also something that needs to be carefully calculated, so that parents can pay in long-term installments" - said Ms. Diep. Can we choose the equipment when shopping and is it necessary to buy all the equipment according to the project's list? Moreover, according to the draft implementation, each class has 35 students but in reality, each class has 50 students. - is also an issue that needs to be considered.

Head of the District 5 Education Department, Ms. Vo Ngoc Thu, said: The electronic textbook project - if determined to do, must be done according to the roadmap. Each district should only pilot from 1 to 3 schools, each school pilot from 1 to 3 classes. After that, summarize and evaluate the results, if good, society will agree and widely deploy, avoid deploying simultaneously when the results of the project have not been evaluated.

Delegates expressed concerns about the electronic textbook project.

Another delegate raised the issue of whether using tablets too early will affect children's eyesight. If implemented, there needs to be a more specific roadmap for parents to grasp. Now that the new school year has begun, if implemented from the beginning, it will be too late, so if the pilot is to be postponed to the second semester of the school year or to the 2015-2016 school year...

Some other opinions are concerned that the school modernization project requires large investments, for example, tablets to integrate electronic textbooks cost at least 5 million/device. If using the state budget, it will be a burden on the budget, beyond the government's capacity, so it needs to be socialized, but socialization is not easy. The city needs to study policies to mobilize forces such as organizations and individuals who have invested in business implementation in the city to contribute support and arrange budget for implementation. In which, teachers' equipment and equipment used in schools and classrooms, supporting poor students are from the city's budget.

Mr. Ha Huu Phuc, Director of the Ministry of Education and Training's representative office in Ho Chi Minh City, proposed: It is necessary to clarify more about why electronic textbooks are being piloted for primary school grades 1, 2, and 3 and not applied to other levels of education?

If we only implement it from grade 1 to grade 3, will students feel disappointed when they go back to regular textbooks when they finish grade 4?

On the other hand, it should be noted that if the pilot can be successful or not, there must be many workshops to get complete opinions to have a specific, detailed project before implementation.

According to Vietnam.net