Management reforms are part of preparations for new school year

Ministry of Education and Training officials highlighted the main issues and objectives of the 2010-11 academic year at a meeting yesterday.

What is the main focus of the 2010-11 academic year?

Deputy Minister Nguyen Thi Nghia: The ministry will continue improving the quality and management of the education sector. Our focus would be on educational management reforms; improving the quality and efficiency of educational activities; building capacity among teachers and educational managers; continuing reforms in education financing; and improving educational infrastructure and enhancing teaching tools.

Are the resources, notably textbooks and teaching tools, ready for students?

Deputy Director of Education Publishing House Nguyen Quy Thao: We have already finished distributing textbooks to all provinces across the country. We also printed an extra 3-5 per cent of textbooks to guarantee that students won't suffer from shortages. In 2003, the year we started to use the new set of textbooks, surveys revealed that about 50 percent of students still relied on old textbooks to study. Since 2008, students have been able to resume the tradition of reusing old books. This year, we been able to better prepare the resources. We're also introducing a new collection of 16 books focused on living skills that will be used for teaching for the first time. We will also provide for free 65,000-70,000 books worth VND8 billion (US$411,000) to children of invalids and martyrs.

This year, the ministry will run a wide campaign against violence in schools. What are the main reasons for that?

Deputy head of Students Affairs Department Ngu Duy Anh: Over the last couple of years, we've seen an increasing trend of school-based violence. Many of the cases could just be traced back to simple situations which should have been prevented had there been a closer relationship between teachers and students. By running this campaign, the ministry would like to call for schools to be proactive in addressing this issue. We also plan to establish centres at schools to provide psychological counselling services.

Will the ministry be able to achieve the target of teaching English as a compulsory subject to 20 per cent of grade-three students nation-wide, as part of a national project aimed at improving the quality of foreign language teaching and learning, as scheduled?

Deputy head of Primary Education Department Tran Thi Tham: We probably won't meet that schedule because we need more time to train teachers after we finish compiling adequate teaching materials. When it comes to teaching foreign languages at a young age, we want to prepare as best as we can. That's why we are still focusing on several pilot provinces while English is still an optional subject in other schools. — VNS