Nghe An: There is still a situation of building standard schools in the style of 'college entrance exam preparation'

On the afternoon of November 6, the Provincial People's Council's Culture and Society Committee had a meeting with the Department of Education and Training under the program of supervising the construction of national standard schools in the province. Comrade Nguyen Thi Thu Huong - Member of the Standing Committee, Head of the Provincial Party Committee's Propaganda Department, Head of the Provincial People's Council's Culture and Society Committee chaired the meeting. Photo: Mai Hoa

Standard schools have no difference or outstanding features.

Based on the monitoring results in the four districts of Que Phong, Quynh Luu, Thanh Chuong and Vinh city, at the meeting, Deputy Head of the Culture - Social Committee of the Provincial People's Council Nguyen Thi Lan pointed out the fact that all four districts did not meet the targets set by the congress.

Specifically, Que Phong district only achieved 27/33 schools; Quynh Luu achieved 69/80 schools and Vinh city 67/90 schools. It is worth noting that among the accumulated number of qualified schools in the localities, there are many schools that have exceeded the time limit for recognition of standards but have not been re-evaluated and recognized.

For example, Que Phong has 9/27 schools; Quynh Luu has 17/69 schools; Thanh Chuong has 24/90 schools; Vinh City has 11/67 schools. Thus, in reality, the number of schools that are in the period of recognition of meeting standards in localities is only about 49 - 52%.

The Provincial People's Council's monitoring delegation supervises a class at Quynh Luu 1 High School. Photo: Mai Hoa

In addition, the Deputy Head of the Culture - Social Committee of the Provincial People's Council also pointed out the situation of favoritism and "standard debt" in the appraisal and re-appraisal work.

For example, at Ha Huy Tap 1 Primary School (Vinh city), although it was re-assessed and recognized in 2016, the cooking area for students is currently not guaranteed; or at Thanh Chuong 1 High School, it was recognized as meeting standards for more than 15 years, but the debt for standard area has not been paid yet...

Director of the Department of Education and Training Thai Van Thanh admitted that the construction of standard schools in localities and schools has long been following the "university entrance exam" model, focusing on working hard and then "relaxing" when they meet the standards, without the awareness of building standard schools with a level and standards that are more outstanding than schools that have not met the standards.

Therefore, after achieving the standards, many localities and schools consider their tasks completed and do not pay attention to consolidating and upgrading the standards, leading to degradation. This is a difficult problem for localities and schools to be re-evaluated and recognized.

Up to this point, the whole province has 1,099 schools meeting national standards, reaching 72.2%; of which 318 schools have met standards for over 5 years but have not been re-evaluated or re-accredited. Thus, if we exclude the number of schools that have not been re-accredited according to regulations, the number of schools meeting standards in the whole province is actually only 781/1,524 schools, accounting for 51.24%.

Director of the Department of Education and Training Thai Van Thanh said that there is a situation of "relaxing" after achieving national standards in many localities and many schools. Photo: Mai Hoa

Need to invest properly in team quality

Concluding the meeting, Head of the Culture - Social Committee of the Provincial People's Council Nguyen Thi Thu Huong affirmed that building national standard schools is an important goal in the education development strategy, the Party Committee and government from the province to the grassroots level have included it in the congress resolution targets, annual socio-economic development targets and the number of new standard schools has increased every year.

Pointing out many limitations and shortcomings in the construction of national standard schools, especially the standard schools that were recognized in the previous period but currently do not meet many targets, the Head of the Culture - Social Committee of the Provincial People's Council suggested that the Education - Training sector needs to have solutions to raise awareness for Party committees, authorities and schools in building standard schools; avoid the mindset of waiting, relying, only focusing on building facilities without investing in improving quality, sense of responsibility, not for students and the team of managers and teachers.

Head of the Culture - Social Committee of the Provincial People's Council Nguyen Thi Thu Huong noted that we should avoid focusing only on building infrastructure without investing properly in improving the quality of education and the sense of responsibility towards the management staff, teachers and students. Photo: Mai Hoa

The Department of Education and Training also needs to review and re-evaluate the mechanisms and policies for building standard schools to proactively advise the province to remove obstacles; link building standard schools with building new rural areas and rearranging commune-level administrative units.

The Department also plans to review schools that are within the standard period, schools that have reached the standard period but have expired, and schools that have not yet met the standard. Based on that, there will be a roadmap for additional investment, development of standards, and clarification of authority and responsibility in building standard schools between localities and schools.

In addition to focusing on the quality of building standard schools, the Head of the Department of Culture and Society also noted that the Department of Education and Training should pay attention to monitoring and directing the work of ensuring food safety and hygiene in boarding schools; ensuring traffic safety; environmental sanitation in schools, and life skills education for students...