Study to make money, not to take exams: A hot message for the education sector

TPO - Although the curriculum and textbooks have changed, many teachers still teach in the old way; exam pressure still dominates the way of learning and teaching - contrary to the goal of "learning to create wealth".

Innovation from the teacher in the classroom

At the meeting of the thematic monitoring delegation "Implementation of policies and laws on development and use of human resources to meet the requirements of socio -economic development, especially high-quality human resources" held yesterday, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Khac Dinh emphasized the requirement that in order to innovate education, we must first improve the quality from the general education stage, because if we study well in general education, we will study well in university. Therefore, we need to shift from studying for exams to studying to create wealth.

This is a viewpoint that is agreed upon by many people and is also consistent with the goals of the 2018 General Education Program.

Resolution 29 - NQ/TW requested: “Strongly innovate teaching and learning methods in a modern direction, promote positivity, initiative, creativity and application of knowledge and skills of learners, overcome one-way imposition and mechanical memorization. Focus on teaching how to learn, how to think, encourage self-study, create a basis for learners to update and renew knowledge, skills, and develop capacity. Shift from mainly learning in the classroom to organizing diverse learning forms, paying attention to social activities, extracurricular activities, and scientific research. Promote the application of information and communication technology in teaching and learning”.

Students of Dong Da Primary School (Hanoi) during a practice lesson on making banh troi.

In 2020-2021, the Ministry of Education and Training will start implementing the new program from grade 1 and then roll it out to other levels, shifting the focus from imparting knowledge to focusing on forming students' qualities and abilities. To achieve that goal, in addition to innovating the program and textbooks, teachers must innovate their teaching methods.

After 5 years, the Principal of a secondary school in Hanoi said that implementing the new program with the old staff and teachers, the solution applied by the school in recent years is to train, educate, and develop teachers. Besides some people who adapt quickly, there are still those who are "slow", afraid of change, stick to textbooks, teach in a rut, have little creativity, and are slow to update technology.

The most important thing in evaluating a school or class is still the quality of student output, which is currently still done by scores and the percentage of students passing the entrance exam to public schools and specialized schools. That is also the desire and goal of parents and students, so no matter how they study, it can be affirmed that students have been and are having to run after exams, and teachers are also struggling with exams and results.

According to this principal, the school proactively organizes many educational activities, focuses on teaching students life skills, organizes many topics on money, emotions, age psychology... so that students have correct awareness, thorough understanding of family and social issues. A Literature class can allow students to discuss and comment on a hot current issue that has just happened, from there present and share their thoughts and attitudes.

Parents have also noticed that when applying the new program, teaching in schools has changed a lot. That is, there are more practice hours, more practical exercises, and math lessons are not just dry numbers.

Primary school students in Hanoi are instructed by teachers to make lemonade.

A parent shared her son's eagerness and excitement after the teacher assigned him the task of sowing and harvesting seeds. Each student was given a packet of mustard seeds and a plastic pot along with instructions for sowing seeds. As soon as he got home, he eagerly soaked the seeds in warm water. When he woke up, the first thing he did was to look at the seeds sprouting so he could sow them in the ground and water them. When the seedlings sprouted green, he was so happy that he sat and watched them for hours and started looking online for information on how to care for them so they could grow well. Another day, he and his friends were assigned the task of preparing ingredients to bring to class to make pho rolls.

Parents believe that, in addition to book knowledge, this way of learning is very practical and helps children acquire many life skills. However, besides that, parents and students are still under pressure from exams, especially the 10th grade entrance exam in Hanoi.

Teachers still "stick" to textbooks

Mr. Dao Tien Dat, lecturer at Hanoi University of Science and Technology, founder of Einstein High School (Hanoi) said that the innovation of the 2018 general education program with the policy of shifting the orientation from imparting knowledge, heavy on theory to developing students' capacity and qualities is a correct and progressive policy. Looking back after many years, it can be seen that the path of learning by imparting knowledge, students work very hard but only learn by rote, memorize mechanically, not contributing to solving practical problems.

“When implementing the new program, the new goals are so progressive, but with the old team and old people, many people have not really changed. Many teachers still stick to textbooks, teach in the old way while the new general education program takes the program as the core, how many books are no longer important,” according to Mr. Dat.

The Ministry of Education and Training, the Department of Education and Training and schools have proactively provided training for teachers at all levels. However, training sessions lasting 5 or 7 days are only for the sake of "skimming the surface" and are not an effective solution to change teaching methods.

According to Mr. Dat, one of the major factors affecting teaching and learning today is testing. The High School Graduation Exam in recent years has changed in the direction of assessing students' abilities, but it is not thorough and complete. For a long time, Vietnamese education has been based on testing, studying for exams, and achieving high scores, so students, parents, and teachers all have the same goal of passing the exam.

When education, examinations are the last step in a closed circle, but for a long time, examinations have become a beacon, a compass for teachers and schools to aim for, how the exam is, we will learn like that. With that reality, innovation in teaching methods should probably start with innovation in exam questions and how to create exam questions. At that time, teachers will still look at exam questions to teach and we also need to have patience to change gradually.

A typical example is Literature, for a long time students have only studied and had exam questions limited to 12th grade literary works, then teachers and students will only knead those works until they are proficient. When entering the exam room, students can only remember knowledge and copy enough ideas to get high scores. But when changing the way of studying, teachers and students can analyze any material, text in books, newspapers... students will form the ability to read, analyze texts, write, summarize problems...

Teacher Tuan Dat also pointed out that the lack of consistency between studying and taking exams will make students struggle and have no direction. Not to mention, in the recent 2025 high school graduation exam, some exam subjects were difficult, if students only studied according to the program, they would not be able to do the exam. And that is also the reason why students have to study more and practice for the exam to be able to confidently take the graduation exam.

The Ministry of Education and Training needs to standardize the exam questions to ensure the ratio of difficult - easy - basic questions in each subject as well as between the subjects, while ensuring that the exam questions are not too difficult, students who learn the knowledge in the program can achieve good scores, then the situation of extra study and exam preparation will be reduced.

Source: https://tienphong.vn/hoc-de-lam-ra-cua-cai-khong-phai-hoc-de-thi-thong-diep-nong-cho-nganh-giao-duc-post1768544.tpo