New General Education Program: Studying 2 sessions/day, why is it considered a reduction in workload?

At a press conference to inform about the draft program of 20 subjects and educational activities in the new general education program organized by the Ministry of Education and Training, Professor Nguyen Minh Thuyet - Editor-in-Chief of the general education program - commented: There are many reasons leading to learning overload such as the program, textbooks and teaching methods.

Professor Nguyen Minh Thuyet - Editor-in-Chief of the General Education Program answered at the press conference. Photo: HN

Accordingly, there are many ways to reduce the workload while implementing the new program, such as: Cutting down on tricky exercises or difficult knowledge, riddles, exam-serving and unnecessary knowledge for students.

Professor Nguyen Minh Thuyet gave an example of Math, the new program will remove difficult and impractical knowledge such as factoring polynomials, complex numbers, etc. In History, primary school level teaches in the form of historical stories (historical memories). Middle school level teaches general history chronologically. High school level teaches by topic.

Another way to reduce the load is to reorganize the content in an integrated way. Instead of studying 3 subjects: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, we build a new subject called Natural Science. The Natural Science program is built on the combination of 3 basic axes: Scientific topics - General principles/concepts of science - Formation and development of capacity. In which, general principles/concepts will be the main issue, connecting the scientific topics of the program.

In addition, teachers' teaching methods also need to change. For example, in the past, teachers read each word from the textbook, but now they let students think and move, Professor Thuyet said.

According to the draft of the new general education program, primary school is designed to teach 2 sessions/day. When asked why the policy is to reduce the workload but students study all day, according to the Editor-in-Chief, this is also a way to reduce the workload. For example, teaching the same amount of knowledge for more time will not put pressure on students.

“In the near future, when a program with many textbooks is implemented, there will be many choices. Therefore, whether the textbooks are overloaded or not is also a competitive factor between the textbooks. The program only requires knowledge to this level, but the books teach more knowledge, making it difficult for students, which means there will be no choice," said Mr. Thuyet.

According to Professor Thuyet, if we want textbooks not to be overloaded, we must first train the writers. The writers and the textbook reviewers must closely follow the requirements of the program.