Draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Education: Building an open, flexible, interconnected, lifelong learning education system

Highly appreciating the quality of the draft Law on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Education, in the discussion session on the afternoon of September 29, full-time National Assembly deputies also made many proposals to continue perfecting the legal corridor for building an open, flexible, interconnected, lifelong learning Vietnamese education system, in line with the requirements of educational modernization.

Clarify the advantages and disadvantages of each option

One of the important changes in the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Education is to provide regulations to continue building an open, flexible, interconnected, lifelong learning Vietnamese education system, in line with the requirements of educational modernization. In particular, the draft Law adds vocational secondary education to the national education system (Article 35) to increase the interconnectivity between general secondary education and vocational training.

Vice Chairwoman of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Thanh chaired the meeting. Photo: Ho Long

To make education more flexible, the draft Law also provides more open regulations on high school graduation exams. Instead of the current form of organizing exams and being awarded high school graduation certificates, the draft Law amends and supplements Article 34 to clearly state that students who have completed high school programs and meet the requirements prescribed by the Minister of Education and Training are allowed to take the exam, and if they meet the requirements, they will be awarded a high school graduation certificate by the school principal. In case students do not take the exam or do not meet the requirements, they will be awarded a certificate of completion of the general education program by the school principal.

From the demands of reality, National Assembly Deputy Nguyen Van Huy (Hung Yen) said that it is still necessary to organize high school graduation exams. Organizing the exam is not only to assess the level of general education standards of students, providing reference data for universities and vocational training institutions to organize enrollment, but more importantly, organizing a common national exam will create a more objective measurement standard.

“Once an objective measurement standard has been created to assess students’ abilities, it is appropriate to link this exam to the current university, college and vocational school entrance exams. However, it should be improved to make the exam concise but still assess the students’ comprehensive abilities,” delegate Nguyen Van Huy suggested.

Due to the current differences in opinions on abolishing the regulation on granting high school diplomas, National Assembly member Tran Van Lam (Bac Ninh) requested the drafting agency and the reviewing agency to evaluate and clarify the advantages and disadvantages of each option so that National Assembly members have a basis for making decisions. Regardless of the direction, the ultimate requirement and goal is still to improve the quality and effectiveness of education.

Explaining this content, Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son said that the majority of opinions support the removal of exams and granting of junior high school graduation certificates and only maintaining the high school graduation exam as necessary: ​​"In addition to checking whether students have met the graduation standards, this is also the basis for objectively assessing how students have met those standards in each group of students, in each region. Not only for students to meet graduation standards, nor is it only the basis for admission to universities and colleges, but also the basis for making policies for the entire general education system," said the Minister.

Schools must be closely linked to society.

Acknowledging that the draft Law has institutionalized many contents of Resolution No. 71-NQ/TW of the Politburo on breakthroughs in education and training development, National Assembly Deputy Nguyen Minh Duc (Ho Chi Minh City) also noted that the Resolution of the Politburo sets out three principles - learning goes hand in hand with practice, theory is closely linked to practice, school is closely linked to society, therefore, it is necessary to study, amend and supplement the provisions in Article 3 of the current Law to fully institutionalize these three principles.

Similarly, to institutionalize the requirement to strengthen the socialization of education in Resolution No. 71-NQ/TW, the draft Law has amended Article 19 of the current Law, giving policy priorities for socialization; on inviting experts, scientists, production facilities and enterprises to coordinate with schools to implement innovation, apply technology as well as link learning with practice. However, to improve the effectiveness of this policy, delegate Nguyen Minh Duc suggested that it is necessary to supplement preferential policies for enterprises to support high schools in performing this task.

Also to enhance socialization, the draft Law has added clear regulations on educational support services - services that do not overlap with activities guaranteed by the state budget or tuition revenue, to support and serve educational activities, in addition to teaching services, with the fee determined according to the principle of calculating the correct and sufficient costs. Considering that this addition is necessary, delegate Tran Van Lam suggested that it is necessary to create initiative for schools to be able to participate in hiring educational services from other establishments, including establishments outside the education system, to serve the educational tasks of their units.

Some places have outsourced physical education services. However, many services can be outsourced such as physical education, gifted education, information technology, and foreign languages. If each school organizes these activities, it will be ineffective because the scale of each school is very small, and the teaching staff is easily underutilized. Therefore, the draft Law needs to open up clear and appropriate mechanisms to facilitate service centers, as well as educational and training establishments to have a basis to hire these services.

“Institutions should only grasp the key and important educational content according to their professional functions. Whatever can be rented and is better, they should rent. This is a very new mechanism, which can create a breakthrough in improving the quality of education, saving money, as well as improving social efficiency,” delegate Tran Van Lam emphasized.

Source: https://daibieunhandan.vn/du-thao-luat-sua-doi-bo-sung-mot-so-dieu-cua-luat-giao-duc-xay-dung-nen-giao-duc-mo-linh-hoat-lien-thong-hoc-tap-suot-doi-10388480.html