Workshop on improving the quality of teaching in grade 1, new general education program

The workshop took place in the context that this school year is the first year that grade 1 implements learning new textbooks according to the 2018 General Education Program.

Delegates speaking at the workshop. Photo: MH

In Nghe An, in the first year of implementation, the province has made quite good preparations such as prioritizing the arrangement of enough classrooms, prioritizing the arrangement of grade 1 teachers with a ratio of 1.4 teachers/class and implementing the planning of the teacher network, consolidating small schools, reducing 16 schools and eliminating 11 small schools compared to 2019-2020. In particular, Nghe An has organized training for more than 2,000 grade 1 teachers to improve the capacity of the teaching staff, helping teachers to be proactive in the process of implementing the program.

Currently, the whole province has 2,022 first grade classes and 87% of classes have 32 lessons/week or more, 86.6% teach English to first graders in an elective form. Many schools have implemented local education, life skills education, and extracurricular activities.

Director of the Department of Education and Training Thai Van Thanh speaks at the workshop. Photo: MH.

In addition to the achievements, the implementation of the first grade program still faces difficulties, especially in the context of many schools lacking teachers and inadequate teaching equipment in many schools in disadvantaged areas such as Ky Son, Que Phong, and Tuong Duong. In addition, the new program has many heavier designs than the old program and the program development of schools in the first year still has confusion and difficulties.

With the above spirit, at the conference, nearly 150 delegates who are key teachers in schools and representatives of 21 education and training departments in the province had many presentations sharing experiences in the process of implementing the first grade teaching program and teaching in the direction of developing learners' qualities and capacities.

Speaking at the conference,Director of Department of Education and TrainingThai Van Thanh acknowledged and appreciated the efforts of the teaching staff of the whole province in the first year of implementing the program of replacing textbooks for grade 1. Compared to the whole country, Nghe An has been flexible and has had many innovations and creativity to overcome difficulties.

Vietnamese lesson for first graders - Nghi Phu 2 Primary School (Vinh city). Photo: MH

To effectively implement the new program, in the spirit of development orientation and learners' qualities and capacities, the Department Director also requested teachers to promote initiative, organize teaching with students as the center, focus on learners and teach students to think, teach how to learn instead of teaching theory, one-way as before.

In addition, teachers need to abandon the mindset of depending on textbooks because textbooks are only reference materials, not legal documents as before. At the same time, they must know how to apply knowledge, bring knowledge into life and focus on assessing the capacity of each student, ensuring output standards.

In the coming time, Nghe An education sector will also direct schools to increase class visits, observation, professional activities at schools and school clusters and continue to train and improve expertise and professionalism to prepare for textbook changes in the following years.

My Ha