VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has said that the ministry ‘won’t let it go’, but will “join hands with education establishments to fix existing problems and overcome difficulties to deploy the new educational method VNEN (the Vietnam Escuela Nueva) in a more effective way and prepare well for the implementation of the new general education program”.
This was confirmed by deputy director of MOET’s Primary Education Department Nguyen Duc Huu.
He said the nature of VNEN is student-centered teaching methodology. Most of the schools using VNEN have prepared the material and teaching facilities, especially the teaching staff, and have ‘deployed VNEN in a flexible and creative way’.
“Only in some localities, the model could not gain the desired achievements, raising worries among parents. This is because of inadequate awareness and poor public relations, so parents and society cannot understand VNEN. The local education establishments could not prepare facilities and teaching staff,” Huu said.
Also according to Huu, the major reason behind the unsuccessful application of VNEN in some localities is the poor training of teachers in accordance with new teaching methods. In the localities, management officers and teachers were not ready for VNEN.
In order to settle the problem, MOET has continued to provide training courses to management officers and teachers about the teaching method and skills, with emphasis on online training, heightening the role of ‘self-study’ and ‘practice’ in the spirit of the ‘training at job’ principle that MOET has been pursuing for many years.
Huu denied that MOET has decided to give up VNEN following criticism from parents and teachers in some localities.
“Amid the opinions about problems when implementing VNEN, MOET has sent instructions, requesting localities to ensure minimum conditions when applying the method, emphasizing that this is implemented on a voluntary basis,” he said.
Most recently, to prepare for the new academic year, MOET instructed local education departments to check the teaching and learning conditions in localities and to stop applying VNEN in localities where the conditions are not good enough for the programme.
There is no official report from MOET or education science institute about the percentage of students and parents supporting or opposing VNEN. There is only a report by the World Bank which says that most Vietnamese students and parents like the teaching method. However, many teachers have raised doubts about the method used by the World Bank to conduct the survey.
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