What are Minister Phung Xuan Nha's priorities for the new school year?

The new school year 2018-2019 is coming. Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha said that the Ministry will carry out priority tasks in the new school year.

Ensure enough classrooms to welcome the new school year

PV:Minister, please tell us what solutions the education sector has put in place to ensure that all students can go to school during the new school year?

Minister Phung Xuan Nha:The entire education sector and localities have tried very hard to prepare basic conditions for the opening of the new school year such as: school facilities, classrooms, and teaching staff.

In recent days, floods have occurred in some provinces in the North, Central and Mekong Delta, causing great damage to the school system. In this situation, the Ministry of Education and Training has directed localities to ensure the safety of teachers and carefully prepare facilities to welcome the new school year.

In the new school year 2018-2019, the Minister of Education and Training will prioritize ensuring school facilities, improving the teaching staff, and promoting university autonomy (illustrative photo).

PV:Every new school year, the issue of lack of schools and teachers is raised with the education sector. At the recent Government meeting, the Prime Minister directed that there should be no shortage of teachers and schools right at the start of the new school year. So, does the Minister confirm that this directive is fully implemented by the education sector and localities?

Minister Phung Xuan Nha:The Prime Minister and the Government have paid great attention to the conditions for improving the quality of education at all levels. In the recent Government meeting, the Prime Minister emphasized that in the new school year, localities must not have a shortage of classrooms or teachers; and must reinforce schools in particularly difficult areas, mountainous areas, and areas frequently affected by storms and floods...

In response to this request, the Ministry of Education and Training has closely coordinated with the Ministry of Home Affairs to address the shortage of teachers, calculating how to ensure the number of teachers for localities according to the staffing and regulations of the industry.

The Ministry of Education and Training has submitted to the Government a project to ensure facilities for preschool and general education. The Ministry also hopes that the Prime Minister will soon approve this project to contribute to improving the conditions of facilities and classrooms.

Teacher and principal standards are top priority.

PV:This school year, the Education sector continues to implement 9 groups of tasks and 5 solutions that were proposed 2 years ago. Currently, parents and the whole society are very interested in which tasks the Minister will prioritize?

Minister Phung Xuan Nha:The Education sector is closely following the tasks set out in Resolution 29 on Fundamental and Comprehensive Innovation of Education and Resolution 44 of the Government focusing on 9 groups of tasks and 5 solutions.

Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha (photo: Ministry of Education and Training)

Among the tasks and solutions proposed, the task is to plan the network of educational facilities from kindergarten to university; to arrange and plan school locations reasonably, avoiding mechanical implementation.

For preschool and general education, which mentions the responsibility of local leaders, the Ministry of Education and Training has issued specific standards for reference.

Regarding the task of developing the teaching staff, in the 2018-2019 school year, the Ministry of Education and Training always considers this a key task. Accordingly, the Ministry of Education and Training has issued a Circular on teacher standards and principal standards because in order to improve the quality of teachers and education management staff, the standards must first be revised.

This also aims to avoid the situation where some localities keep saying that they have exceeded standards, but those standards do not accurately reflect the requirements for fundamental and comprehensive innovation of education towards developing learners' qualities and capacities.

To carry out this task, the Education sector will have training sessions to support teachers and management staff. In addition, an important task in the new school year is based on the roadmap for innovation of programs, textbooks, teacher standards and management staff, the Ministry of Education and Training will also have a plan to train and retrain teachers and school management staff.

For primary school level, when implementing the new general education program, in places where there are not enough conditions to teach 2 sessions/day, the Ministry of Education and Training has also consulted with ministries and branches to submit to the Government a project to solidify schools, combined with the national target program, new rural areas, government bond program, and mountainous education to focus on prioritizing investment in difficult areas.

During this school year, the Education sector also prioritizes focusing on improving foreign language proficiency, especially English, not only in school but also outside of school.

For universities, the Ministry of Education and Training is very interested in allowing schools to be autonomous. To encourage schools to exercise autonomy more strongly, the Ministry is drafting a Decree on university autonomy to submit to the Government for consideration.

In addition, the Ministry is also working with the National Assembly's Committee on Culture, Education, Youth and Children to review and amend a number of articles of the Law on Higher Education to submit to the National Assembly for approval in the next session. All of these activities aim to improve the quality of human resources to meet the needs of society.

PV:Thank you, Minister!