"Pain reliever" no longer effective?

(Baonghean) - Over the years, the disease of achievement has emerged as one of the causes contributing to the retardation of progress. Many of its consequences have negatively affected all aspects of life.

Economically, the disease of achievement distorts the basis for planning. Socially, it seriously undermines trust not only between the people and the authorities, but also between the authorities, between superiors and subordinates and vice versa. What is the disease of achievement? Why does it exist? How can it be eliminated? All of these are still questions that need further research and answers!...?

It is very possible that achievement disease is formed from the pressure in the process of implementing targets. In theory, targets are goals that people quantify and set to strive to complete a certain job. Achievements are the results they achieve, compared with the set targets. A trend that seems to have become popular is how to make achievements equal to or higher than targets? But unfortunately, people do not always satisfy this desire.

In such cases, failure to meet targets means failure to achieve. Another problem is that society often uses achievement as a measure of ability, then encourages it with benefits. Salaries, bonuses, promotions and even certificates of merit are so attractive that when benefits are threatened, instead of striving to complete tasks with their own strength, people seek to create virtual values ​​that deceive everyone, sometimes even becoming victims themselves. When the endless race for virtual values ​​begins to become popular and tacitly accepted, it becomes achievement disease. People compete to enjoy satisfaction with a result that is not real. Now it has become a serious disease, a chronic disease, even a pandemic, more dangerously, it has the ability to "metastasize". At first, it was thought that it only took root in the education sector, but no, the disease of achievement is everywhere, growing, multiplying, and developing, causing unpredictable consequences when it is beyond the control of inherently weak sanctions.

In 2007, the education sector took the lead in eliminating it with a “two no” campaign (Say no to negativity in exams and achievement disease in education). When the reality was exposed publicly, the whole society was shocked to see the high school graduation rate, which was about to “complete 100%”, suddenly “fall freely” to 50-60 percent!

Faced with such a situation, the campaign has therefore received enthusiasm and excitement from the whole society. People have exposed “earth-shattering” cases, accompanied by hundreds of individuals and dozens of units being dealt with. The positive effects have also begun to spread to other areas. It was thought that this was the hot start to a major surgery to eradicate malignant tumors, but unfortunately, everything seems to be cooling down. Here and there, comments appeared that “the elephant’s head is a mouse’s tail” or that we are treating the disease with “painkillers”.

Returning to the “two zeros” result through the data table, we see that the above descriptive comments are not unreasonable: In 2007, the high school graduation rate was below 50% in some places; then it “increased steadily” until 2011 when it was 95.72%. The most surprising thing is that in 2012, the graduation rate was almost 99%. An ideal number that puts Vietnamese students among the “best” in the world. Obviously, the achievement of “the following year is higher than the previous year” has revived. Some people even humorously said, “It is because this is a movement to compete for achievements to fight against the disease of achievements”.

It is said that at the end of last year, a commune did not dare to “bring the rate of cultural families to 100%, for fear of… what will increase next year?” So it is clear! The disease of achievement is not a thing of the past. If it is a disease, it must be treated, but the therapy of “using painkillers” is only temporary, sometimes it even deceives the patient. I think it is time for us to review the problem comprehensively, to have a suitable regimen, step by step to push back this terrible disease!

Khac An