New school year at Primary level: Abolishing certificates of merit for Excellent and Advanced students

The new school year, a change that is quite surprising to parents, students, and even teachers is the removal of the title of excellent and advanced students for the whole school year. Students will only have test scores at the end of the first semester and the end of the year. Teachers will have to switch from evaluating by scores to comments.

Primary school students will be able to evaluate themselves as well as their peers.

Need to innovate primary school assessment soon

The most important goal of evaluating primary school students today, according to Mr. Pham Ngoc Dinh, Director of the Department of Primary Education, Ministry of Education and Training, is to help students learn better, not just to record their learning results at the end of the school year. "Previously, we waited until the end of the semester or the end of the school year to evaluate students, and if they did not meet the standards, it was too late to support them. Now, if we want students to learn better, we must pay attention to the entire learning process of students and evaluate them regularly. This means that teachers must collect data, observe, interview, test, comment on the learning process, practice, advise students on qualitative comments on their own learning results as well as those of their classmates..." - Mr. Pham Ngoc Dinh analyzed.

Although the Ministry of Education and Training has not officially signed the Circular promulgating regulations on evaluating primary school students, Mr. Pham Ngoc Dinh affirmed that this regulation will be officially applied in the new school year 2014-2015. Accordingly, the Ministry of Education and Training requires to remove the current method of classifying students, which means there will no longer be certificates of merit for excellent students or advanced students at the end of the semester or the end of the school year. Instead, there will be forms of rewarding achievements for each student's strengths. "Not only teachers decide on rewards, but all students can participate in praising their classmates, promoting democracy in education" - Mr. Pham Ngoc Dinh added.

Mr. Duong Quoc Nam, Head of Primary Education Department, Ninh Binh Department of Education and Training, affirmed that this assessment method is very humane: "There should be no more hesitation in implementing it. Previously, primary schools used an assessment method that did not compare one student with another but only compared the student himself in the learning process. I do not understand why it is no longer maintained."

Doing something without understanding it will be counterproductive.

During the discussion on the new assessment method organized by the Ministry of Education and Training on the afternoon of July 30, primary school experts all supported this innovation. However, many opinions said that the guidance must be carried out early. "There must be thorough training before implementation. If teachers do not understand the purpose and method and immediately apply it, it will lead to the opposite effect" - Mr. Duong Quoc Nam worried.

Discussing this issue, Dr. Nguyen Tung Lam, Chairman of the Hanoi Psychology Association, said that in schools in the city, each class has up to 50-60 students, making it difficult for teachers to carry out this assessment method. The large number of students, while teachers have to be close to them, and have to make comments every day, will lead to the possibility that teachers will be hesitant. "This innovation is very good, but it requires teachers to have expertise, teachers to overcome difficulties, parents to care about their children, not just asking about their children's scores, but having a connection and coordination with the school, teachers to help their children, only then will there be a change" - Dr. Nguyen Tung Lam affirmed.

Mr. Pham Ngoc Dinh also admitted that there are still many opinions that eliminating assessment by scores will reduce pressure on students and increase pressure on teachers, but assessment by comments has been required before, and now the Ministry...

Education and Training only specifies in writing. “The most worrying thing is that teachers have to give direct verbal comments to students or write comments on students' papers and notebooks about what they have done or have not done for each student and group of students. However, we try to reduce the burden on teachers by requiring them to write in the monitoring book every month, but not everything, only the most necessary things. Teachers come up with separate work plans with poor and good students to ensure that 100% of students reach the minimum level. In addition to commenting on knowledge, this method also shows the teacher's feelings. When students read the teacher's comments, they will feel encouraged to overcome their difficulties" - Mr. Pham Ngoc Dinh analyzed.

According to ANTĐ