VietNamNet Bridge – The Vietnam History Science Association has honored 206
general school students who got high prizes at the national history competition.
However, it knows for sure that the majority of the 206 students would not
continue history studies at a higher education level.
The ceremony honoring the history major students took place on April 5, 2013,
where five first prizes, 34 second prizes, 78 third prizes and 89 consolation
prizes were awarded to 206 students. Five first prizes were given to the
students from Nam Dinh, Ninh Binh, Ha Nam and Quang Binh.
Though there have been many general school students gloried for their good
knowledge about history, Vietnam does not have many historians. This is because
the excellent students would not continue studying history when they finish high
school.
According to Prof Phan Huy Le, Chair of the Vietnam History Science Association,
211 students were honored in 2012 for their big achievements. The students had
the right to enroll in the history faculties of the state owned schools without
having to attend the university entrance exams.
However, the right was used by only a few of them. Nine students enrolled in the
history faculty of the Hanoi University of Education, 3 to the Da Nang
University of Education, one to the Hanoi University of Social Sciences and
Humanity. As such, only 13 students decided to continue history studies at the
university education level, which accounted for less than 10 percent of history
majoring excellent students.
The majority of polled general school students frankly said they are afraid of
history lessons.
Local newspapers some days ago reported that the 12th graders of the Nguyen Hien
High School in HCM City tore up the history textbooks just several hours after
the Ministry of Education and Training announced the high school final exam
subjects. Since history is not an exam subject, the students threw away the
textbooks and documents relating to history.
Meanwhile, Giao duc Vietnam’s reporters, when conducting a mini survey on the
learning of history at school, met a fourth grader, who said frankly she hated
history subject.
The reporters raised some questions to 3rd, 4th and 5th graders to examine the
students’ history knowledge and surprisingly found out that many of them did not
have basic knowledge about Vietnam’s history. Especially, these were very simple
questions such as “What is the capital city of Vietnam?” or “Which enemy did Hai
Ba Trung fight against?”
Duong Trung Quoc, a well-known Vietnamese historian, now a National Assembly
Deputy, said that the current problem cannot be settled overnight, while the
glory of history majoring excellent students alone will not help make students
passionate to history lessons.
Quoc said that Vietnamese students don’t like studying history for many reasons
– the heavy curriculums, unreasonable teaching method or the overloading of
academic knowledge. All that factors make history lessons boring and
uninteresting to students.
Especially, he complained that historians and the people who follow history
studies, do not receive any valuable awards except the spiritual encouragement.
Meanwhile, students prefer studying economics and technologies, the majors which
can bring them good job opportunities.
“Everyone says they understand the significance of history studies. But they do
not choose to study history as their career,” he noted.
GDVN