Not teaching sea and island sovereignty to young people is a crime.
Many directions and proposals for groundbreaking changes in the teaching and learning of History were discussed at the national scientific conference on teaching this subject in high schools.
The workshop was organized by the Ministry of Education and Training in coordination with the Vietnam Historical Science Association on August 18-19 in Da Nang.
Must be done in the new school year
Most opinions agree that current History textbooks present a lot of events in a scattered, heavy, boring manner; they have unnecessary things but lack some basic and typical contents. In particular, an important content of current current events is the unity and territorial integrity and sovereignty over the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagos in the East Sea, but the textbooks do not mention it.
An hour of teaching and learning history at Luong Van Can High School, District 8, Ho Chi Minh City
Professor Nguyen Quang Ngoc, Institute of Vietnam and Development Sciences, said: “Vietnam’s sovereignty over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa is a heroic history written with the blood and bones of generations of Vietnamese people. Documents on the process of establishing and implementing our sovereignty over Truong Sa and Hoang Sa are extremely rich and accurate, both domestically and internationally. Yet for a long time, this obvious and important issue was considered “sensitive”, so that the history of a country does not have a single line about sovereignty over seas and islands.”
"Who is responsible before both ancestors and posterity for this distortion of the country's history?", Professor Ngoc asked.
Professor Phan Huy Le, Chairman of the Vietnam Historical Science Association, said: “The Association has sent a document to the Propaganda Department, the Ministry of Education and Training... to quickly include the content on sovereignty over the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagos in the curriculum for students. If the young generation grows up without understanding or has only a vague understanding of this issue, it will be very dangerous.” Professor Phan Huy Le emphasized: “Not equipping the young generation with that basic knowledge is a crime against the young generation.”
Therefore, Professor Le believes that we cannot wait until 2015, when we renew the textbook program, to include content about our country's sovereignty over the East Sea in teaching, but this needs to be done in the next school year.
This is also the view that receives the majority of agreement from history teachers from high school to university.
Professor Nguyen Thi Coi, Faculty of History, Hanoi National University of Education, suggested that this school year, the Ministry should request the Department of Secondary Education to draft and issue a set of teaching materials on sovereignty over seas and islands.
Regarding this issue, Mr. Nguyen Vinh Hien, Deputy Minister of Education and Training, said: “Teaching about sovereignty over seas and islands has been included in the geography textbook. In the recent high school graduation exam and university and college entrance exam, this content was also included in the geography exam and received support from public opinion. However, because at the time of writing the textbook, this issue did not pose an urgent requirement as it does now, even though it has been taught, it is not enough. In the near future, it will certainly have to be added to appropriate subjects, including history.”
Teaching history from stories
Dr. Nguyen Anh Dung, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Institute of Educational Sciences, and the research team on the general education program innovation project (Ministry of Education and Training), proposed to officially teach history from grades 4 and 5 by integrating it into the social studies subject. However, these contents must be presented in the form of vivid, visual historical stories.
Mr. Le Tien Thanh, Director of the Department of Primary Education (Ministry of Education and Training), also said: "It is necessary to teach history to students through stories and images. The way of making test questions must also be open so that students can express their understanding and feelings." Mr. Thanh gave an example: "The test for 4th graders could be about a king or a general that they like the most, instead of asking students to tell about dry events and numbers like today."
At the junior high school level, according to the innovation proposal of the research group, History content is integrated into the Social Science subject. After each semester, students will learn at least 2-3 topics that link the fields together. At the high school level, History will be taught by topic. There are compulsory and optional topics.
Need an official website to support history teaching |
According to Thanh Nien - NT