VietNamNet Bridge – It is quite a surprise that the stories about General Vo Nguyen Giap, the legendary general and national hero cannot be found in school textbooks.
Hung, a 11th grader of the Le Thanh Tong High School in HCM City, told his mother, Nguyen Thi Thu Hien, that his teacher asked to pay one minute’s silence in memory of General Vo Nguyen Giap, who passed away some days ago at the age of 103.
The teacher also spent a 45-minute lesson to talk about General Giap, though another topic was initially scheduled for the lesson. And Hung burst into tears when watching the TV program which reported the General’s funeral.
“Why don’t the educators think of showing the stories about the legendary Giap in textbooks, so that Vietnamese generations can better understand about him?” Hien questioned.
According to Thanh Nien newspaper, the history textbook for ninth graders comprises of 21 lessons about Vietnamese history. One of the lessons, about the Vietnamese resistance against the French colonial, provides the information about the historical battle Dien Bien Phu. However, there was no information about General Vo Nguyen Giap.
The history textbook for 12th graders also mentions the Dien Bien Phu battle. However, though providing more details about the battle, the name Vo Nguyen Giap was not mentioned.
The newspaper quoted Nguyen Thi Hao, a teacher of the Nguyen Van Troi Primary School in HCM City, as saying that there is no lesson about General Vo Nguyen Giap.
Lawyer Truong Trong Nghia, a National Assembly’s Deputy, agrees that the information about his biography and credit in textbooks remains insufficient. Therefore, Nghia has called on historians and educators to amend history textbooks, commencing from the textbook for primary and secondary schools.
According to Nghia, the fact that hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets to bid a final farewell to the legendary General on October 13 showed that the General is the hero and the idol for every Vietnamese, including the youth who never meet him.
However, Vietnamese young people learn about General Vo Nguyen Giap not through Internet, books and the tales from grandparents or parents, while they don’t receive the knowledge from school textbooks.
Di Li, a young writer, who was born in 1978, said she cannot understand why the educators made such a big mistake of “forgetting” General Vo Nguyen Giap, a very important contemporary character, when compiling history lessons.
She commented that not only the lessons about General Vo Nguyen Giap, but many other important things have not been found in textbooks. Therefore, it is necessary to re-write the books.
All the teachers and students, old and young people have said “yes” when they were asked if it is imperative to say about General Vo Nguyen Giap when giving history lessons to students.
Associate Professor Tran Xuan Nhi, former Deputy Minister of Education and Training, affirmed that General Vo Nguyen Giap, who deserves the respects of the whole nation, needs to be mentioned in history lessons.
Meanwhile, Nghiem Dinh Vy, a history expert from the Ministry of Education and Training, said students can have some information about General Giap in textbooks, but not in a bold outline. He has promised that improvements would be made when re-compiling textbooks for the post-2015 period.
Compiled by C. V