VietNamNet Bridge – Schools have been told to compile documents and have
enough textbooks for teaching and learning by 2015. However, a lot of schools
complain that the task is beyond their means.
The Dong Thap University, which is 10 years old, has admitted that it does not
have the sufficient financial capability and the workforce to compile textbooks
as requested.
Dr. Nguyen Van De, President of the school, said the biggest problem for the
young schools is that the workforce is not qualified enough to compile
textbooks. The limited financial capability does not allow the schools to put
the textbook compilation on the high priority of the to-do list.
Compiling textbooks, in the thoughts of the schools, is not an urgent work,
because their lecturers and students still can use the textbooks compiled by
well- known experts and more prestigious schools.
De said that Dong Thap now has 3,379 sets of documents to serve the teaching and
learning, satisfying 77 percent of the students’ demand. About 73 e-lessons have
been compiled over the last 3 years which allows improving the quality of
learning via Internet.
As for FPT University, the school does not intend to compile textbooks in the
first stage of development.
Le Truong Tung, President of FPT University said that it would be very costly
and time consuming for the school to compile textbooks and documents itself.
Meanwhile, it would be better to use the materials compiled by the famous
authors and being used by many prestigious schools.
Aiming to train the students capable to work in an international working
environment, the textbooks and documents should be written in English.
Meanwhile, it is nearly unfeasible to hire Vietnamese to compile textbooks in
English.
De affirmed that it’s very difficult to choose suitable documents and textbooks
for every school.
Since schools cannot compile all the textbooks and documents needed for their
teaching and learning, they have been advised to cooperate to write textbooks
and lesson plans in order to optimize the strength of the schools’ workforce.
The old schools, where there are leading specialists who are the authors of many
research works, could be the sources which provide textbooks and documents to
other schools all over the country.
However, De said a problem has arisen that the documents compiled by famous
schools sometimes are too heavy for the majority of students. Since the famous
schools have higher quality students, the specialists tend to provide too much
knowledge in their textbooks, which cannot be used for other students.
According to Dr. Nguyen Van Nha, former Head of the Training Division of the
Hanoi National University, who is now the President of the Nguyen Trai
University, there are four big existing problems.
First, some good lecturers do not want other schools use the textbooks they
write. Second, some educators believe that no need to provide textbooks to
students, because university is not a general school. Third, the pay for the
textbook compilation is too low, which cannot encourage lecturers and scientists
to write. Fourth, not all the lecturers can write textbooks.
Therefore, Nha thinks that small schools should not waste time and money to
compile textbooks. They’d better to apply the solutions which are “economical
and reasonable.”
GDTD