"Inform" awareness and how to follow Circular 30

(Baonghean) - After 1 year of implementation, Circular 30/2014/TT-BGDDT has changed the "old ways" of assessing the quality of primary education. However, the implementation process still has many conflicting opinions, especially around the issue of commenting, evaluating students, using records in schools and year-end rewards... which were also frankly raised by delegates at the Conference to evaluate 1 year of implementing Circular 30 recently organized by the Nghe An Department of Education and Training...

The above conference was attended by many education managers, teachers and leaders of many primary schools across the province and most of the delegates' opinions assessed that the implementation of Circular 30 is a breakthrough for the education sector and has outstanding advantages: It has met the requirements of innovation in student assessment in the spirit of Resolution 29 of the Central Committee in terms of: reducing pressure on scores and exams; helping students develop comprehensively in terms of qualities, abilities, learning processes and results; helping teachers promptly adjust teaching methods suitable for each subject; thereby helping students progress according to the requirements of primary education. The results of the periodic assessment at the end of the 2014 - 2015 school year show that the quality of subjects is firmly guaranteed (subjects assessed by scores with a passing rate or higher on the periodic test at the end of the school year remain stable or higher than the 2013 - 2014 school year; in particular, the rate of students achieving 9, 10 points (equivalent to excellent according to Circular 32/2009) has increased from 2% - 7.24%, in which the highest increase is in Mathematics...

Self-study hour of students at Dien Quang Primary School (Dien Chau).

However, the implementation still has many difficulties and many teachers have not yet caught up with the new features compared to the old grading method. Therefore, in many cases, teachers still use the method of converting scores into comments or general comments and assessments, with little encouragement for students. Talking about this issue, Ms. Ngo Thi Nguyet - Deputy Head of the Department of Education and Training of Vinh City said: "The most difficult thing for teachers now is choosing words to comment. It cannot be good from the beginning, but even at the present time, not all teachers can comment skillfully and flexibly. How to comment so that students can easily absorb it, not causing pressure or harm to students but still encouraging students is not easy."

In mountainous areas, because parents in many places are not familiar with Vietnamese, and first and second graders are not yet fluent in reading, the evaluation by writing in students' notebooks has not created an interactive effect between school - family - student. "It is not true that only giving red marks on notebooks is closely following students. With the characteristics of the population, the level of education, and the terrain of mountainous districts, verbal evaluation with students and parents will be more effective than comments written in notebooks," said Mr. Phan Van Thiet - Deputy Head of the Department of Education and Training of Ky Son district. Ms. Tran Thi Nhu Ngoc - Principal of Xuan Son Primary School (Do Luong) said that to ensure that all students are evaluated, writing comments is very difficult and time-consuming for teachers. Therefore, the school still encourages teachers to evaluate and encourage students verbally, although it is difficult to control the intensity of teachers' work.

In addition, although Circular 30 advocates delegating authority to principals in year-end commendations and evaluations. But in reality, during the implementation process, there were titles that were not really suitable for primary school students and the situation of "chaos" in titles occurred quite commonly in the first year of implementation. Concerned about this, teacher Le Thi Le - a specialist of the Department of Education and Training of Tan Ky district said: "Writing compliments on year-end certificates is very difficult. Each student is a "small" compliment, which is very close to the student's ability and progress, but it takes a lot of time for teachers. Should we group them or use more concise terms?". A delegate from Ky Son district shared a reality: Previously, rewarding excellent students was mainly based on the results of studying cultural subjects. Now, the rewards are more diverse, including academic performance, ethics, and talents. Therefore, each class will certainly have many students being praised. However, that also means that in a class there will be a few students who will not receive any praise. This puts pressure on these students and goes against the spirit of Circular 30...

With 21 opinions presented at the conference, it shows that there are still many problems in the implementation of Circular 30. This is not completely unexpected because the 2014-2015 school year is the first year of mass implementation. Meanwhile, the conditions of each locality and each school are completely different. On the other hand, to change the habit of regular assessment by scores to comments is not a matter of a day or two and as teacher Tran The Son - Head of the Primary Education Department, Department of Education and Training said: If any parent wants their child to be "successful" right from primary school, they will not be happy with this assessment method. However, we have to look at the positive and humane aspects. Here, through comments, we can encourage the children, see their daily progress and let them no longer feel pressured, so that they can truly feel that "every day at school is a happy day".

The shortcomings and concerns that delegates shared require the provincial education sector to look directly at reality and find solutions to make the implementation of Circular 30 more effective in the coming school year. In particular, the sector determined that the innovation of the assessment wing according to Circular 30 must go hand in hand with innovation of teaching methods. Therefore, in the coming time, the Department of Education and Training will direct schools to regularly organize professional activities at schools and school clusters to help teachers gain a deeper understanding of the new perspectives in Circular 30. In addition, it is necessary to continue to advise and support teachers on regular assessment techniques to help teachers adjust teaching methods to help students improve every day. Gradually changing the way students' quality monitoring records are processed helps teachers reduce the time spent on bookkeeping, spending more time on student education activities. Along with that, strengthen coordination between schools and families; Use the contact book effectively along with comments on assignments to help parents grasp progress as well as difficulties to coordinate to help children study and practice well.

My Ha