Parents support the policy of unifying a group of sgk
Resolution No. 88/2014/QH13 of the National Assembly on program innovation and textbook education for general education issued more than 10 years ago has had a major change when deciding on the policy of "one program, many textbooks".
This policy helps promote competition, break the monopoly in compiling books, and at the same time diversify learning materials, allowing teachers and students to have many options suitable to local conditions and promote personal capacity. Currently, high schools across the country have chosen 1 of 3 textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education and Training for teaching.
However, after a period of application, the above model revealed certain shortcomings. For example, parents often have difficulty buying textbooks at the beginning of the school year because there are few schools that use only one set of textbooks for teaching. Schools are "mixing" 2 - 3 sets of textbooks, so if they do not register in school, parents have to go to many bookstores to buy enough textbooks for their children. Or it is very difficult to buy supplements during the year. There are also parents who have difficulty when wanting to transfer schools for their children...
"For personal reasons, I want to transfer my child to another school, but I am extremely concerned because each school has a different set of books, making it difficult for me to get used to and access the knowledge of the new set of books" - Ms. Le Thu Thuy (Thanh Hoa) shared.
From the above shortcomings, Ms. Thu Thuy and many parents support the policy of unifying a set of textbooks shared nationwide.
Dr. Nguyen Tung Lam - Vice President of the Vietnam Association of Educational Psychology, Chairman of the Board of Education of Dinh Tien Hoang - Ba Dinh High School (Hanoi) - commented that the policy of unifying a textbook set according to Resolution 71 of the Politburo is a reasonable adjustment, to ensure fairness and synchronization in knowledge access. However, what he worries about is that society is still tending to focus on the role of textbooks, while books should only be considered as reference documents for teaching and learning.
"The new curriculum is the core. The focus is not on having one or more sets of books, the decisive thing is the teaching method of teachers and the learning method of students. During the learning process, teachers must know how to combine textbooks with many other sources of documents, link lessons with practice, with technology... And students themselves also need to proactively explore and refer to additional sources of documents to expand their understanding, instead of just depending on a single book" - Dr. Nguyen Tung Lam assessed.
Dr. Vu Thu Huong - former lecturer of the Faculty of Primary Education, Hanoi National University of Education - acknowledged that unifying a set of shared textbooks does not mean eliminating creativity. On the contrary, it is an adjustment to establish a common foundation, but still retains flexibility to suit practical conditions.
Proposed implementation plan
Dr. Hoang Ngoc Vinh - former Director of the Department of Vocational Education, Ministry of Education and Training - said that in the context that the 2018 GDPT program has ended its 5-year cycle and there are up to 3 textbooks currently circulating, to implement the Politburo's policy, there are 3 options. First, completely renew a SGK set from the beginning. Second, choose a relatively best set and edit and edit. Third, select the best songs from many sets to put together.
"In my opinion, option one is impossible because it requires too much time and resources. The three-way plan seems attractive but can easily lead to a situation of "mechanical competition", lack of cohesion and copyright dispute. Therefore, the two most feasible options are to choose a good framework, edit it, and selectively add some works from other ministries but under close coordination to keep the flow consistent. I believe that this is a way to both save resources and meet timely requirements" - Mr. Vinh said.
In addition to the implementation plan, Mr. Vinh said that there are three key groups of tasks that the Ministry of Education and Training needs to implement: First, review and adjust the 2018 GDPT program, because SGK is only a tool to realize the program; if the original is still inadequate, the book will only be a patch. Second, choose a framework and organize editing, with an independent board and a clear copyright mechanism. Third, testing, training and preparing an accompanying learning materials system for synchronous implementation.
"Regarding implementation resources, the Ministry of Education and Training plays the role of "conductor"; the expert council is in charge of criticism; the Publishing House and the author take care of editing techniques; and teachers and schools respond to practical results. Although time is urgent, if divided into three stages - reviewing & selecting the framework, editing & reviewing, testing & training - it is still feasible. The most important thing is to think systematically, ensure progress and transparent supervision" - Mr. Vinh assessed.
Assessing the difficulties in implementing the policy of a unified textbook set nationwide, Dr. Vu Thu Huong said that the biggest difficulty is related to implementation costs. "It will be expensive. However, this is not a concern as we have passed the hunger period and have enough investment for the future" - Ms. Huong said.
