The textbooks for first grade have not been changed since the 2019-2020 school year.

This information was also reported by the Minister of Education and Training, Phung Xuan Nha, to the Chairman of the National Assembly's Committee on Culture, Education, Youth and Children, Phan Thanh Binh.

Instead, the replacement of first-grade textbooks will take place no later than the deadline allowed by the National Assembly, which is from the 2020-2021 school year.

Accordingly, the reason given by the Ministry of Education and Training is that the new curriculum for general education subjects has not yet been issued. There are still a number of tasks to be completed, such as: notifying organizations and individuals to register to write textbooks; researching the curriculum for textbook compilation; and conducting evaluations and approvals before publishing the textbooks.

Furthermore, even after textbooks are available, schools, teachers, students, and parents need time to familiarize themselves with them and conduct trial teaching to select the most suitable set of books. Many of these tasks and contents are difficult to implement in less than a year, as initially planned for the reform of the first-grade curriculum and textbooks starting in the 2019-2020 school year.

Previously, at the National Assembly session in November 2017, the National Assembly passed a Resolution on adjusting the implementation roadmap for the new general education curriculum and textbooks. Accordingly, the phased application of the new general education curriculum and textbooks will be implemented no later than the 2020-2021 school year for primary schools, the 2021-2022 school year for lower secondary schools, and the 2022-2023 school year for upper secondary schools.

However, by early September, the Ministry of Education and Training was still showing signs of a strong determination to implement the new curriculum and textbooks for first grade starting from the 2019-2020 school year.

Talk withVietNamNetThis morning, September 27th, Professor Nguyen Minh Thuyet, the chief editor of the new general education curriculum, said that he himself is currently unaware of this information.

However, according to Professor Thuyet, from a professional standpoint, the program has been fully prepared for implementation starting from the 2019-2020 school year. "Professionally, it's ready in time, but perhaps by the end of this year the Minister will have to report to the National Assembly on how the work is progressing, and it will likely depend on the opinions of the delegates," Professor Thuyet said.