Nghe An: Reference books have 'infiltrated' the textbook lists of many schools.

Parents are "confused" when registering to buy reference books

1 million 129 thousand VND is the amount Ms. Nguyen Ha Anh paid for all textbooks and 20 notebooks for her son who is preparing to enter grade 4. Among these, there are dozens of books but she cannot distinguish which are textbooks and which are reference books. She only knows that there are 10 books for Math alone and 8 books for Vietnamese. For Math, in addition to Math exercise books, there are also Weekend Exercises, Math Practice, Advanced Math Exercise Books and 36 Math practice questions for grade 4. Similarly, for Vietnamese, in addition to Exercise Books and Practice Books, there are also books such as Sample Essays, Help me learn Vietnamese well, and Self-study Vietnamese.

Sharing more about this, Ms. Ha Anh said: I have two children and for many years I have often boughttextbookthrough the school library. This year, the homeroom teacher told me to register to buy books, but there was no list of books like in previous years, so I registered to buy the whole set. Now that I have come home, I see that there are quite a lot of reference books, and I don't know if my children can do all of them. Because there are many books bought from last year, and they won't be used up by the end of the school year.

The school year is over but there are still many new and unused books. Photo by My Ha

In Vinh city, many parents choose to buy textbooks through the school channel. This has many advantages because the books are supplied to each parent, the source of books ensures quality. However, buying textbooks in sets also makes it difficult to control each book and cannot avoid having to buy too many reference books. The textbook set of Mr. Nguyen Van Duc's son (going to grade 5 this year) this year was also introduced by the homeroom teacher at a total cost of 1 million 073 thousand VND. Of this amount, the school did not clearly list each book but only stated that basic textbooks (27 books) cost 503 thousand VND, reference and advanced books (8 books) cost 280 thousand VND. The rest is to buy school supplies, technical subjects and notebooks with the school logo.

Mr. Nguyen Van Duc said: It is clear that the homeroom teacher wrote "order books at school to avoid the situation of excess books, shortages, and books that do not guarantee quality" but looking at the registration form like this, we do not know which books to choose and which are textbooks, which are reference books. To be honest, there are many books that if the child studies well, we can ask him to do more. On the contrary, after buying them, we just leave them there, and at the end of the year we sell them as scrap paper. I also find the price of reference books to be too expensive compared to textbooks. If you look at the price list and the number of books, it is already 3 times more expensive. In addition, there are many books in the list that need to be purchased but in reality are hardly used, such as science exercise books, computer exercise books, computer study guides, etc.

In addition to textbooks, parents have to buy many other books for 4th grade Math. Photo by My Ha

If buying textbooks through school channels is confusing for many parents, buying books on the market is even more difficult with a "forest" of books.reference booksand every book is introduced as “important and necessary”. Meanwhile, most parents do not know which book to choose. Ms. Ngoc Anh, whose child is in 7th grade this year, said: I read the reference books and found them similar and often choose books from reputable publishers and authors. However, not every year I buy the right books for my children to learn. In my opinion, to avoid buying too many books and wasting money, schools and teachers need to guide parents and students and have solutions to help and guide students to use textbooks and reference books practically and effectively for many years.

Reference books – wasteful and ineffective

Reference books are considered as a supplementary book to textbooks and help students study to improve their own abilities. And almost every subject has at least one reference book. Particularly for core subjects such as Math, English, Literature, Physics, Chemistry... each level of education has many books with many authors and many different publishers.

As a math teacher, Mr. Phan Hoang Thach - a teacher at Bac Yen Thanh High School, said that "not only students but also teachers today are overwhelmed by too many reference books. In the past, when looking for reference books for math, we often looked for familiar authors and reputable publishers. But now, when math exams have changed from essay to multiple choice, there are many new sets of books. Meanwhile, old authors do not write much. To choose textbooks for myself and for teachers, I spent a lot of time, going to most bookstores in Vinh to read, there were books that I sat reading for a whole session but still could not find a suitable book. I see that there are many reference books today but they are similar to each other. The authors do not write books with their own mark but mainly summarize exam questions and provide answers. Students do not learn much from those reference books...

For the same set of 2nd grade textbooks, two primary schools in Vinh city have two different prices, depending on the number of supplementary books and reference books. Photo by My Ha

Through many years of teaching and nurturing excellent students, Mr. Thach also believes that depending on each student, he will guide them to buy the appropriate book "even some books that both teachers and students go to the bookstore to see and discuss". Besides, students today also tend not to buy textbooks but to refer to documents online for self-study. However, this way of learning also has limitations as students depend too much on social networks and they are afraid to search because the exercises online all have available answers.

To rectify the situation of “abuse” of reference books, in recent years, the Nghe An education sector has also issued documents requesting schools not to force parents to buy reference books or not to include reference books in the textbook list. However, to thoroughly manage this issue is still difficult and in reality, the situation still occurs “as scheduled” when reference books still “infiltrate” the textbook list of many schools.