Nghe An Department of Education and Training responds to shortcomings in implementing the new timetable

A class of grade 1 at Ha Huy Tap 1 Primary School. Photo: Duc Anh

Regarding this issue, Nghe An Newspaper had an interview with Mr. Nguyen Hong Hoa - Head of Primary Education Department - Department of Education and Training.

Reducing classes is to reduce the tuition fee for 2 sessions/day.

According to Mr. Nguyen Hong Hoa, after the inter-sectoral guidance document was sent to localities on organizing 2 sessions/day of teaching, localities have now implemented it.

However, in reality there are also certain difficulties.

Firstly, because at this time the 2018-2019 school year has passed more than 2/3 of the time, schools and localities are confused about changing the timetable. That makes it difficult for schools to arrange time and for parents to pick up and drop off their children.

Second, in the interdisciplinary guidance, the constructive perspective is to arrange lessons to minimize the collection of money from parents.

Specifically, according to the regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training, studying 2 sessions/day is no more than 35 periods/week. However, the industry wants to reduce the number of periods/week to reduce the tuition fee for the second session.

Third, when establishing the collection rate, the industry does not specify a specific rate for each school. Instead, the industry only stipulates “collection to cover expenses”, so each school will set an appropriate collection rate based on the number of students it has. Therefore, there will be a phenomenon where schools with more students will collect less, and schools with more teachers will collect less.

From this reality, "we have to direct schools to have reasonable fees. Schools with fewer teachers may teach fewer periods to ensure that the fees of all schools are similar."

Mr. Nguyen Hong Hoa - Head of Primary Education Department.

Discussing the reality happening in Vinh city, Mr. Nguyen Hong Hoa also shared the shortcomings when there is a phenomenon of "in the same school, the number of classes for grade 1 and grade 5 students increases differently, causing difficulties for parents when picking up and dropping off".

However, the industry also has difficulties in the implementation process when arranging the number of periods. Because currently, according to the instructions of the Ministry of Education and Training, the number of periods for grades 1 and 5 differs by 3 periods (grade 1 is 23 periods/week and grade 5 is 26 periods/week).

And when building a 2-session/day school system, if the number of periods is arranged equally between grades 1, 2 and grades 3, 4, 5, then grade 1 students have to study more (if studying 32 periods/week, grade 1 students have to study 9 more periods, grade 3, 4, 5 students only have to study 6 more periods). Meanwhile, grade 1 students are still young and they need more time to play and participate in other activities.

Even in the new general education program, the Ministry also stipulates that the number of periods for grade 5 is more than that of grade 1 (grades 1 and 2 only have 25 periods/week, grades 3, 4, and 5 are 30 periods/week). Therefore, the upcoming trend of grade 1 students having fewer periods and grade 1 students having to go home earlier than grade 5 students is possible.

The industry is also concerned that "studying more also forces first graders to collect more money" because teachers of grades 1 and 2 will teach more periods than teachers of grades 3, 4, and 5 (for example, in Vinh city, on average, teachers of grades 1 and 2 will have to teach 12 more periods per month than the remaining grades if they all teach 32 periods per week).

To solve this problem, the representative of the Department of Education and Training also affirmed: It will research and collect the wishes of parents and schools in the direction of proposing that the number of basic lessons remain the same to ensure the number of additional lessons for all grades is equal.

In addition, to ensure that parents can pick up their children on time at the same time, schools will organize additional activities outside of class hours.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong Van - Principal of Ha Huy Tap 1 Primary School.

Teacher Nguyen Thi Hong Van - Principal of Ha Huy Tap 1 Primary School

As soon as we received the new document, even though we had not yet implemented it, we saw some shortcomings. Firstly, the time frame. For the past 8 months, we have implemented a framework program. Now, there is only 1 month left and it has changed.

The second problem is the time difference between students in grades 3, 4, and 5 and students in grades 1 and 2. In a school with two modes of going home, the school's discipline is also affected because people going home are noisy and students also have to take a while to settle down. Moreover, going home like that, parents will definitely have a hard time picking up and dropping off, especially during hot and stressful times.

In fact, just one day of change has created insecurity among teachers, school administrators and the whole society.

The school is also really sorry about this change and hopes to soon have appropriate adjustments that benefit many sides.

After a day of implementation, we also saw the shortcomings and had a meeting to find a solution, to be consistent with the guidelines and still satisfy the people. Specifically, we called on teachers to voluntarily and with love for children to teach 2 extra lessons each week to guide extra learning in class.

During the implementation process, parents will be notified so that the children can return to the old regulations without being disrupted. However, we also see that this temporary arrangement will only last for 3 weeks. In the long term, if advised, I think there should be an "open" mechanism to give autonomy to schools depending on the actual situation to build a program that ensures students learn while playing, play while learning within the framework of the school's management and ensures the program framework, especially for special units like Vinh city.

I also think that if the number of periods for students 1 and 2 is increased and the money has to be increased, this is not an important issue, even if each month we have to pay a few tens of thousands more. The most important thing is the issue of propaganda and understanding so that parents can see that the money is used for the right purpose, according to regulations, avoiding overcharging and overspending.

On the afternoon of April 22, discussing this issue, Ms. Hoang Phuong Thao - Head of the Department of Education and Training of Vinh City also said: Before implementing the new timetable, the department had anticipated problems that could arise that could cause difficulties for schools and parents. Therefore, after the first week of implementation, the department directed schools to collect opinions from parents. In particular, if parents can pick up their children, the school will create conditions for them to go home early. In case parents cannot pick up their children, parents will negotiate with the homeroom teacher and the school to coordinate care... Currently, schools are also ready to share these difficulties with parents.

Although solutions have been proposed, the department also believes that this is only a “temporary” solution. In the coming time, the city will also research and develop a more practical plan to submit to the Department and may seek opinions on a separate mechanism. However, the planning process still has to consider many issues and can only be implemented in the next school year.