Former Korean Minister gives advice on improving Vietnam's education

At the consultation workshop on building a master plan for the development of Vietnam's higher education for the 2021-2030 period, with a vision to 2035 (Master Plan) on March 29, Professor Ju-Ho Lee, former Minister of Education, Science and Technology of Korea, shared the current state of education in Korea and gave many suggestions to help improve the quality of education in Vietnam.

Encourage students to ask questions to be more creative

Mr. Lee informed that Korea has conducted research on competitiveness in the mobile technology, semiconductor, automobile, shipbuilding industries... The results show that this country is very good at manufacturing but lacks the ability to come up with ideas to design new products. This requires the Korean education system to change to improve creativity and design capacity for students.

Another common problem in Korea and Vietnam is that students are often asked to answer teachers’ questions but are not encouraged to ask many questions or draw ideas on paper. That makes Koreans good at giving answers but not really good at being creative.

"Vietnam has done well in improving the quality of general education, which is reflected in the PISA results. Therefore, I think this is a good time for Vietnam to change higher education to create a great leap forward," said Mr. Lee, emphasizing the change in curriculum and methods to improve students' creativity.

Mr. Lee said that Korea has understood this and adjusted. Recently, Korea has initiated a school year divided into three semesters. In the first semester, students do not have to take any tests and are not graded. On the contrary, they are encouraged to ask questions, actively interact with teachers, and do their own projects. This is to reduce pressure and increase students' creativity.

"The context of the 4.0 industrial revolution requires people who can be pioneers. Education must create students who can be pioneers, not follow in the footsteps of others," Mr. Lee affirmed.

Failure to create interest in students is failure.

Mr. Ju-Ho Lee shared that Korean students also achieved good PISA results like Vietnamese students, but later on they lost interest in Math because they had to answer questions given by others. And tAccording to a survey of Korean students' abilities, students focus a lot on passing the college entrance exam, but once they enter college, they don't study much anymore.Koreans have good abilities when they are young but they decrease as they get older.

From that reality, Mr. Lee believes that not only Korea but also Vietnam needs to focus on lifelong learning and to do that, creating interest for students instead of forcing them to learn by heart is very necessary.

In the 4.0 industrial revolution, according to Mr. Lee, one of the ways to help students enjoy learning is to apply high technology to teaching to create high-quality, interesting, and highly interactive lectures.However, this does not mean that teachers should stop using traditional teaching methods. They need to combine the traditional and the modern and teachers must realize that they need to change to adapt to that reality.

A Korean education expert believes that the application of high technology in teaching should focus on young teachers because they are the future of education. "Old people like me sometimes feel a bit shy when having to research high technology to be able to apply it in teaching, but young teachers are very interested, so they have the ability to apply it better," he explained.

In addition to the above suggestions, Mr. Lee believes that basic research should not be separated from applied research and commercialization of products.Ideas in university labs need to be quickly transformed into products and commercialized. Universities need to act as the hub of the innovation ecosystem. South Korea is trying to improve this, and Mr. Lee suggests that Vietnam should also pay attention.

The Ministry of Education and Training is developing a comprehensive higher education development strategy for the 2021-2030 period, with a vision to 2035, as a basis for innovation, comprehensive and long-term sustainable development of Vietnam's higher education system.

Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha said the strategy will focus on five pillars: strengthening state management and university governance capacity; planning the network of higher education institutions; enhancing the quality and relevance of training and scientific research; ensuring sustainable financing for higher education; and enhancing information and communication transparency.

The consultation conference on March 29 was organized by the Ministry of Education and Training in coordination with the World Bank with the participation of many education experts from the World Bank, Korea, Malaysia, Latin America and the Caribbean region...