VietNamNet Bridge – Teachers and students go to school everyday just to
struggle with the difficult math questions or complicated literature issues.
Meanwhile, the knowledge is useless for them and unrealistic.
Professor Dinh Quang Bao from the steering committee on renovating the general
education curricula after 2015, commented that the knowledge in the textbooks
for general school students is too heavy, unnecessary. Meanwhile, students are
not taught the basic necessary skills for life.
Associate Prof Van Nhu Cuong, Headmaster of the Luong The Vinh High School in
Hanoi, has noted that the math curriculum is overloaded to the majority of
students. Only 3 or 4 math periods (a period lasts 45 minutes) are provided a
week. Meanwhile, during the short time, students have to receive a huge volume
of knowledge. Especially, the knowledge is too academic and unrealistic, which
makes the math lessons become the nightmare for many students.
Cuong emphasized that the knowledge, in many cases, is unnecessary for students
who do not intend to follow math studies. “You will not need the knowledge about
complex number, unless you are a math teacher,” Cuong noted. However, the
lessons about complex number still have been considered the important parts of
the math curriculum.
“I can say for sure that 1/3 of the math knowledge students receive from high
school is useless for general school students,” Cuong said.
Agreeing with Cuong, Nguyen Quang Phuong, a math teacher of the Nguyen Truong To
Secondary School in Hanoi, has noted that the heavy unnecessary knowledge has
burdened students. Ninth graders, for example, begin learning about solid
geometry. Meanwhile, in the past, only high school students had to deal with the
matter.
As for philology, Nguyen Quang Huy from the Hanoi 2 University of Education,
said he has found the knowledge is unsuitable to the psychology and the reading
trend of the students of modern times, therefore, the curriculum cannot raise
the students’ eagerness for learning.
A teacher from a high school in Tu Liem district says that he himself feels
tired when trying to understand the textbooks and learn about the arisen issues,
let alone the students.
Primary school teachers have also complained that the current curriculums are
too heavy for small children, who just begin going to school.
Nguyen Thi Hien, Headmaster of the Doan Thi Diem people founded school in Hanoi,
has conducted a thorough survey and given comments about the knowledge she
believes “redundant” and “unnecessary” for students.
It seems that the curriculums tend to be heavier after every time of renovation.
Some lessons which were the curriculums of the higher grades have been put into
the curriculums of the lower grades. For example, previously, the addition and
subtraction operations within 100 were designed for second graders. Meanwhile,
first graders nowadays also deal with the operations.
Hien has also pointed out that in many cases, knowledge has been repeated, thus
making students feel boring. While Vietnamese schools provide too much academic
knowledge, they do not give the opportunities to students to practice.
A math teacher of the Thang Long Primary School in Hanoi said that the knowledge
about solid geometry is too difficult for fifth graders.
“I have to talk about the matter many times, but my students cannot understand
it,” she complained.
Meanwhile, the geographical knowledge provided to 4th graders is too old with
figures which are not updated.
Nguyen Hien