National Assembly requests time to experiment with new curriculum and textbooks

The National Assembly's Committee on Culture, Education, Youth, Adolescents and Children (Committee) has just issued a preliminary inspection report on the implementation of Resolution 88 of the National Assembly on innovation of general education programs and textbooks.

Building and promulgating new programs is still slow.

As assigned, since 2015, the Committee has conducted many activities to monitor the implementation of Resolution 88. In 2017, the Committee held 2 thematic meetings to listen to the Ministry of Education and Training's report and discuss and exchange on this content.

Based on the monitoring results and Submission No. 408/TTr-CP dated October 6, 2017 of the Government, the Standing Committee of the Committee organized a preliminary review of the implementation of Resolution 88 and gave opinions.

Accordingly, the Standing Committee highly appreciated the efforts of the Government and the Ministry of Education and Training in implementing Resolution 88.

The Standing Committee of the Committee basically agreed with the contents of the Government's Submission No. 408/TTr-CP on the implementation of Resolution 88 and believed that these contents had relatively fully reflected the work that had been done, identified the work that needed to be done in the coming time and pointed out a number of main reasons leading to failure to ensure the set roadmap.

However, in addition to the above results, the Standing Committee of the Committee found that, due to many subjective and objective reasons, the development, appraisal, testing and promulgation of new programs are still slow, not ensuring the set roadmap and progress.

The Committee on Culture, Education, Youth, Adolescents and Children assessed that the development and promulgation of new textbook programs is still slow.

The issuance of the overall program alone is one year behind schedule. The curriculum of each subject has not yet been completed to create a basis for compiling, evaluating, and testing textbooks as well as training and coaching teachers; localities do not have a basis to prepare for compiling local educational content; educational institutions also do not have a basis to develop appropriate educational plans in accordance with the spirit of the Resolution.

Especially the delay in preparing the conditions of facilities and teaching staff, although these contents have been clearly defined in the Resolution of the National Assembly.

Up to now, the project on ensuring facilities for the general education program has not been approved while the project on training and fostering teachers and educational institution managers is still slow to be implemented.

Take the time to experiment

From there, the Committee recommends that the Government and the Ministry of Education and Training continue to focus on directing and perfecting the curriculum and textbooks, actively preparing conditions for facilities and training, fostering teachers and education management staff, ensuring the feasibility and quality of program implementation.

Vietnam's new general education program is inherited from developed countries. Photo: Internet

From now until the new curriculum and textbooks are applied, the amount of work that needs to be implemented is huge, from building subject curricula, compiling, evaluating, piloting, selecting textbooks, developing and evaluating local educational content to training and educating teachers, preparing school equipment, classrooms, working and learning environments...

All of these things need to be carefully prepared to ensure the quality of program implementation, avoiding repeating the limitations and shortcomings due to the lack of uniform implementation as happened when implementing Resolution 40/2000/QH10 of the National Assembly (renovating the general education program).

The Committee also recommended that the Government and the Ministry of Education and Training consider spending appropriate time on testing new programs and textbooks.

“This innovation in curriculum and textbooks includes many new contents and methods of educational organization. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct serious and careful experiments before applying them widely,” the report said.

There is a phenomenon of "blank assignment" for the education sector.

Regarding some recommendations in the Government's submission, the Committee agrees that there should be major policies to develop the team of teachers and educational managers. The Standing Committee of the Committee recommends that the Government include this content in the Submission on the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Education for the National Assembly to consider and decide.

The report also stated that the direction and implementation work, the participation of all levels and sectors are still not really synchronous and rhythmic, and there is even a phenomenon of "outsourcing" to the education sector.

Therefore, the Standing Committee of the Committee recommends that the Government focus on directing both central and local levels to actively and proactively prepare and implement assigned and decentralized tasks.

Propose many options to delay the start of the new program

The report said that the Government proposed to apply the new curriculum and textbooks in a rolling manner at each level of education nationwide, for primary school from the 2019-2020 school year, for middle school from the 2020-2021 school year and for high school from the 2021-2022 school year.

Thus, compared to the roadmap stipulated in the National Assembly's Resolution, the application of the new curriculum and textbooks will be delayed by 1 year in primary schools, 2 years in secondary schools and 3 years in high schools.

The Standing Committee of the Committee believes that, due to the delay in the implementation of the new curriculum, textbooks and ensuring conditions, the recommendation to postpone the application of the new curriculum is necessary to have enough time to prepare and create consensus in society when implementing it widely.

However, this is an important issue. The Standing Committee of the Committee requests the Government and the Ministry of Education and Training to seriously evaluate the work that has been done, fully identify the causes of the delay, and carefully calculate the remaining work volume and the time needed to complete it.

From there, research and propose a number of options to delay the start of application and methods of implementing the new curriculum and textbooks; provide full information on the advantages and limitations of the options so that the National Assembly has a basis for consideration and decision.

According to Vietnamnet