The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has admitted that big problems exist in the textbooks for the national education system. It has also been aware of the necessity for a “revolution” in the way of compiling textbooks. 

Problems admitted

MOET Minister Pham Vu Luan on December 25 had a report before the National Assembly’s Committee for Culture, Education, the Youth and Children about the educational problems, including the textbook compilation.

A lot of educators and scientists have criticized the quality of the textbooks for general schools, saying that the lessons are too academic and unpractical to students.

Luan said that the curriculums and lessons in the textbooks have not been designed in a harmonization so as to create a perfect whole with the links of curriculums from primary to secondary and high education.

Luan also said that abstract terms have been provided in textbooks, thus making it understandable to students, while the knowledge provided proves to be too heavy to students. Especially, the lessons have been designed in a way which does not fit the lesson duration (45 minutes for a learning period).

The current teaching method has been described as the “teacher-say-students-take-notes” method, which means that students receive knowledge in a passive way. As a result, students feel tired when attending lessons, while teachers have to overwork and get disappointed with students.

Some analysts commented that MOET seems to “stuff students’ heads with everything it can”, which has resulted in the unreasonable curricula. Students learn everything, and then they forget everything.

MOET needs time to reconsider the issue, but how much time will it need?

Responding to the call that it is necessary to carry out a “revolution” in compiling textbooks, MOET said it agrees that Vietnam needs such an revolution, but it needs some more time to think of it.

MOET’s Minister Pham Vu Luan said that the ministry now thinks of the possibility of having more than one set of textbooks for every grade. Educators, citing the models applied in other countries, have suggested that MOET should only set up the standard programs, while compilers would write textbooks based on the programs. There would be different choices in textbooks for students, who would choose the ones they most like.

However, Luan said that MOET still needs time to think about the “one-program-many-sets-of- textbooks” suggestion, because this is a serious matter.

However, the promise still cannot lift people’s worry. How much more time will MOET need to think about the issue before it makes decision? And how much more time will it need to turn the idea into reality?

For the time being, Vietnamese students still have to bear overloaded curriculums and learn with too academic and unpractical knowledge provided in textbooks. 

Vietnamese parents keep complaining that there are so many kinds of reference books that they don’t know what to choose for their children. 

The noteworthy thing is that many reference textbooks have low quality which may make students’ knowledge distorted. However, the textbooks still could “go through the supervision agencies” to be put into the market.

Meanwhile, the majority of students say they need reference books to improve their knowledge, once the textbooks compiled by the education ministry are not enough for them, if they want to pass the national exams, especially the university entrance exams.

However, once again, MOET needs time to think about how to control the book market.