20-year goal for English as a second language in schools

The National Council for Education and Human Resources Development has just held a meeting to solicit comments on the draft Project "Making English the second language in schools for the period 2025-2035, with a vision to 2045".

According to Thai Van Tai, Director of the General Education Department ( Ministry of Education and Training ), the project is expected to be deployed throughout the entire education system with nearly 50,000 facilities, about 30 million students and 1 million staff and teachers.

Head of the General Education Department (Ministry of Education and Training) Thai Van Tai said that to implement this, it is necessary to add about 22,000 English teachers at preschool and primary levels.

To do this, it is necessary to add about 12,000 preschool English teachers, nearly 10,000 primary school teachers, and at the same time train at least 200,000 teachers capable of teaching in English by 2030.

The project implementation roadmap is divided into three phases (2025-2030, 2030-2040, 2040-2045) with a set of assessment criteria including 7 standards for each level of education.

The Ministry of Education and Training has identified solutions such as: developing the teaching staff; building programs and learning materials; innovating exams, tests and assessments; applying technology and artificial intelligence, etc.

Resources for implementing the project include the state budget and the participation and contributions of businesses, organizations and individuals. The Ministry of Education and Training affirmed that the success of the Project requires social consensus and persistent implementation over 20 years, in order to contribute to improving national competitiveness and deep international integration.

The country currently has more than 1.05 million preschool and primary school teachers, of which about 30,000 are English teachers.

Still many concerns

From the perspective of a teacher training unit, Professor Nguyen Quy Thanh, Principal of the University of Education ( Hanoi National University), said that making English a second language must be associated with training thinking, the ability to receive and reflect on culture, and at the same time combine with rational thinking to create real change. For children, the period from 4 to 7 years old is the "golden period" for learning languages, but he also worries that if children learn English too early, it may affect their ability to master their mother tongue and their ability to receive Vietnamese culture.

Ms. Tran Thi Huyen, Acting Director of the Department of Education and Training of Can Tho, suggested that the implementation still has many concerns about teacher capacity and infrastructure conditions. With the reality that a large number of students are ethnic minority children, many of whom are not yet proficient in Vietnamese, there needs to be a suitable roadmap for each locality to ensure synchronous and effective implementation.

Deputy Minister of Education and Training Pham Ngoc Thuong emphasized that the two key factors to implement the project are: institutions and training of teachers. Innovation in teacher training programs and appropriate remuneration policies, especially for teachers who both teach English and use English to teach science subjects, are urgent requirements.

In addition, he also said that the implementation roadmap to 2045 needs to be implemented flexibly. In particular, localities with favorable conditions can go first, creating a leading role, while difficult areas will implement according to appropriate progress.