Learn to swim on paper...
It's only the beginning of summer, but there have been a series of tragic drownings of children across the country, both in urban and rural areas. The country...
At the beginning of summer, a series of tragic drownings of children have occurred across the country, both in urban and rural areas. Our country is one of the countries with the highest number of drowning victims in the world. The Department of Preventive Medicine, Ministry of Health said that drowning is the leading cause of death in children and the second in adults. On average, each year Vietnam
However, the general education program to date still does not include teaching swimming skills.
(Photo: Internet)
According to Ngu Duy Anh, Head of the Department of Students of the Ministry of Education and Training, this has not been done because it is very difficult to implement swimming lessons in schools. In reality, the facilities are lacking, investing in building a swimming pool costs hundreds of millions of dong, but there are no swimming teachers. Every school has a physical education teacher, but not everyone is trained to teach swimming to students. The Ministry of Education and Training sees this as urgent but is powerless because it requires a huge amount of capital, and there is no answer as to where that funding will come from.
Mr. Nguyen Trong An, Deputy Director of the Department of Child Protection and Care - Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, admitted that among fatal injuries in children, drowning always accounts for the highest rate. Not only in cities but also in the Mekong Delta, most children drown because they do not know how to swim. Meanwhile, there is a widespread lack of care when looking after and supervising children in unsafe environments.
Primary school leaders in many localities also said that teaching swimming to students is something that every school is waiting for, and parents are even willing to contribute money so that the school can organize swimming lessons for their children. However, many schools cannot realize this wish. Swimming projects are still only on paper.
A few years ago, the project to teach swimming to primary school students was implemented by the Hanoi Department of Education and Training and the former Department of Sports and Physical Training (now the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism). The Hanoi Department of Sports and Physical Training covered all the costs of teaching swimming, while the Department of Education and Training directed schools to organize and manage students coming to study. The goal was that after a course, students would know a swimming style and be able to swim 25m continuously. Thousands of primary school students in districts enthusiastically participated in swimming lessons every summer. However, swimming lessons gradually decreased and were eventually stopped! The reason was that district sports centers did not receive funding from the Department of Sports and Physical Training, so they could not maintain teaching students to swim.
The capital is still like that, let alone other provinces and cities. So the Ministry of Education and Training's direction to the Departments of Education and Training nationwide to implement drowning prevention and pilot swimming lessons in primary schools in the period 2010-2015, from 2 years ago, has not yet made any progress. Currently, the living environment for children is not really safe when many houses are near ponds, lakes, rivers, and streams but have no fences. Open wells, water tanks, and construction pits without covers... are all risks that can easily cause accidents for children.
The most important way to prevent drowning in children is to teach them how to swim, dive and deal with dangerous situations that may occur when in contact with water. But clean ponds and lakes are now also depleted and polluted, especially in places where economic development and urbanization are increasing every day. Rivers are being "choked" by toxic waste every hour, river water is black and smelly with toxic levels many times higher than the standard, making it more difficult for children to learn to swim.
The Ministry of Education and Training requires that in the 2011-2012 school year, activities to prevent drowning accidents for students, especially pilot models of teaching swimming in schools, must be actively implemented, but there are no regulations binding schools on how to do this, so it is very difficult to implement. It is true that families need to proactively teach children to swim, and society needs to protect children by strictly implementing occupational safety. However, due to lack of funds, children are not taught to swim, and children continue to drown at alarming rates, and the primary responsibility still lies with the education sector.
According to Daidoanket
