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Children are like buds on branches,
Know how to eat and sleep, know how to study, and be good at it
These are the opening two verses in Uncle Ho's poem " Tre Con" published in the Vietnam independence Newspaper, No. 106, dated September 21, 1941. But it was not until 10 years later, June 1,00, that the first International Children's Day in Vietnam was celebrated. Since then, June 1st every year has been considered the National Children's Day.
If counting since 1950, the International Children's Day 1.6 this year 2025 is 75 years of Vietnamese children with their Tet holiday. Vietnam is the second country in the world to approve the United Nations Convention on Child Rights, this is the first international legal document to talk about children's rights including the right to care, protect and help.
Uncle Ho's poem was written in the context of the country not yet independent. At that time, children only need to " play well", that is, eat, sleep, study so that parents can feel secure against the enemy, increase family production is already good. Then society changes, the requirements for children, the requirements for society to care for children become different.
The 7x and 8x generations like us remember the summer days to remember the days of wandering, slap fish, catch birds, the head of the sun, the body of the rain and the rain almost no one managed. 40 years ago, when the Nhue River flows through Ha Dong still clear, I and my friends jumped from the Black Bridge, the white bridge into the river, once drinking the stomach and also witnessed my friend drowned.
I read the statistics, that up to now, every year in Vietnam, there are still about 2,000 children who die from drowning. That is a great pain for the family and society. The press and social networks still often post sad news because children drown in the sea and rivers and lakes, especially in the summer.
Before that information, I often remember Anh Vien - a female swimmer in Vietnamese sports. Since I was a sports reporter, I have paid attention to Anh Vien - a girl born and raised in a rural area in Phong Dien district, Can Tho. From a young age, Vien was taught to swim to survive in the Mekong River garden. After knowing how to swim, she had the opportunity to participate in many local swimming competitions and was enthusiastically guided and guided by many teachers on a professional swimming journey.
But I am impressed not only with the valuable medals and records that Vien has, but also the way Vien uses his influence to create a swimming movement. Anh Vien also opened a Swimming Club and Swimming pool named after her, becoming an enthusiastic swimming teacher. She constantly participates in inspirational activities and propaganda on drowning prevention for children in schools.
Anh Vien also uses social networks to spread useful swimming videos. Despite taking a day to produce a video, she still tries to share useful swimming skills and catch up with interesting trends, bringing positive energy to the community. It is important that Vien said that her becoming a swimming teacher was not to find talent but just want to swim to become a wide sport and thanks to swimming, there would be many children to save themselves in cases where they are at risk of drowning.
From Anh Vien's story and Uncle Ho's poem "children are like buds on the branch", I keep thinking, should it be, in efforts to care for and protect children and adults who are forgetting, or have not invested in helping "doll on the branch" grow up, be physically healthy and have enough skills to cope with life's surprises?
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Fitness is the strength of the nation, that familiar saying is being forgotten in the current general education system when investing in physical education is still formal and problematic. While students are increasingly facing the pressure of studying, lack of exercise, increasing school diseases... physical education - which is a "vaccine against disease" - is being overlooked. In particular, the shortage of physical education teachers in many schools across the country is posing an urgent need to change investment and management thinking.
In the minds of many parents and many educational managers, physical education has long been not properly evaluated. Instead of being considered a basic subject for developing physical strength, spirit and personality of students, physical education is considered an "advancement", just to... get enough points.
Many students share: If it rains, or there are classes to check for Math and Literature, physical education classes are immediately cut or swapped. Meanwhile, the conditions for courts and sports equipment in many schools, especially in rural and mountainous areas, are still at... minimum.
According to a survey by the Ministry of Education and Training, currently about 30% of schools nationwide do not have standard playgrounds or practice areas; 50% of schools do not have physical education rooms or multi-purpose buildings. And, only about 9% of schools have swimming pools.
One of the biggest "bottlenecks" today is the shortage of physical education teachers, especially at the primary level. This is an important level of education that forms a foundation for movement, basic skills and training habits for students, but is the place with the largest shortage of teachers.
In Hanoi, the Department of Education and Training once collected statistics: Of nearly 800 public primary schools, about 20% of schools do not have physical education teachers in the right major, many schools have to combine physical education teachers from other subjects to teach physical education. Some places even allow homeroom teachers to have physical education at the same time, even if they do not have expertise in physical education.
The latest figure, as of May 2025, the country still lacks nearly 120,000 teachers at all levels, including nearly 45,000 preschool teachers. Notably, out of 66,000 assigned staffing quotas, localities have only recruited nearly 6,000 teachers over the past three years. The common point of many localities is the lack of teachers in IT, English, Fine Arts, Music, and Physical Education.
Although the sport has been included in the assessment in the direction of capacity development, in reality, many students still consider this a "rest" or "pass the test". A physical education teacher in Ho Chi Minh City shared: "Once I had to ask my homeroom teacher to support me so that I could help my students... go to the physical education center, because they wanted to stay in the Math department."
To build a healthy, civilized and sustainable society, it is necessary to start with proper physical exercise hours, with teachers in the right profession and a school environment, where "physical training" is placed in the right position. That is a problem that cannot be delayed if we are truly concerned about the future of children.
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At the meeting of the Politburo, the Secretariat on the last 3.5, General Secretary To Lam emphasized: “The day before working with the Ministry of Education and Training, I said two sessions. In the afternoon, it is possible for the children to study other subjects. The comrades say now need to add hundreds of thousands of teachers, this one is not allowed by the machine. Invite the artist to guide the children to draw. In peace, the children are developed.
That speech marked an important shift in the thinking of educational governance: Instead of relying only on the public system, education needs to be supported by the community, where artists, experts, and scientists become part of the lesson.
Right at the National Assembly, when discussing the draft Law on Teachers, many National Assembly deputies recalled the General Secretary's suggestion.
Delegate Nguyen Thi Thu Ha, Deputy Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Quang Ninh Province, expressed her impression and high agreement with General Secretary To Lam's speech on inviting singers, musicians, athletes or artists who are good at teaching music, sports or painting to students. "This is like a directive to pave the way for thinking in educational administration. Contracting with singers, musicians, athletes, painters, teaching talent subjects in educational institutions is an opportunity to help students develop their talents and talents, overcoming the current teacher shortage," said delegate Ha.
When the class welcomes singers to teach music, athletes to teach physical education, painters to teach painting, and scientists to experiment with students... then students will grow up not only with scores, but with inspiration to live and the ability to integrate with the world.
Education cannot stop at the test. It is time for the society to step on the podium, with teachers to create a generation of Vietnamese, so that the "buds on the branches" are healthy, full of internal power from an early age, shoulder the responsibility of being the owner of the country in the future.
