HCM City (VNS/VNA) - The HCM City Department of Education and Trainingand city schools have been training teachers, choosing textbooks, and preparingfacilities to carry out a new nationwide training programme in the 2020-21academic year required by the Ministry of Education and Training.

The department is cooperating with the HCM City University of Education andViettel Group to organise training courses for all managers and first-gradeteachers.

For the 2019-20 academic year, the city has 547 principals, 827 vice principalsand 5,000 first-graders.

Training for first-grade teachers will be expected to be completed next month.Teachers of the second grade will be trained from this month to June next year.Training courses for the third, fourth and fifth-grade teachers will be carriedout afterwards.

Public and private schools have been told to create favourable conditions fortheir teachers and managers to take part in the courses to meet therequirements for management and teaching under the new training programme.

From the 2020-21 academic year, schools will begin to have more autonomy inmaking educational plans as well as decentralised decision-making amongprofessional teams who will be able to design curricula based on the ministry'stargets.

Last year, 83 percent of teachers met or exceeded the standards of trainingaccording to Education Law, leaving nearly 20 percent that still need training.

Speaking at a press meeting held on June 24 in Ho Chi Minh City, Nguyen VanHieu, the department’s deputy head, said: “Each school has its main first-gradeteachers taking part in training courses which the department has organised.These teachers will then teach the other first-grade teachers."

Teachers are instructed in skills to design curricula and methods based on newtextbook content, Hieu said.

The Vietnam Education Publishing House Co. Ltd has four sets of textbooks foruse at schools in the city in the 2020-21. The company has cooperated with thedepartment to carry out training programmes online and offline.

The city still faces a shortage of teachers for music, fine arts, and foreignlanguages, mostly English.

The department has worked with universities of education in the city tosupplement computer and foreign language teaching. It has proposed allowing graduateswho majored in foreign language at universities, and who do not train teachers,to study further training courses so they can teach at schools, Hieu said.

“They could help address the shortage of foreign language teachers,” he added.

New textbooks

Nguyen Thanh Trung, chief of the secretariat at the department, said: “All fivesets of textbooks which the ministry approved were sent to teachers andmanagers of schools to choose during the social distancing period.”

Of the five, the Chan Troi Sang Tao textbooks were chosen by 80 percent of thecity’s total schools.

Nearly 1 million copies of the textbooks will be printed, accounting for 81 percentof the total textbook copies issued in the city, according to Vietnam EducationPublishing House Co.Ltd.  

The chosen textbooks were written by many authors from the southern region, sowords and phrases as well as data are familiar to students.

“Many primary teachers in the city also took part in compiling,” Hieu said.

He said the city’s teachers are using new teaching and testing methodologiesthat will be compatible with the textbooks.

A representative of Phan Chu Trinh Primary School in Tan Phu district said theschool chose this set of textbooks because the content was good and thepictures were lively and attractive.

The Chan Troi Sang Tao textbooks also were chosen by schools in 11 provincessuch as Ben Tre, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, and An Giang.

Hieu said that prices of the five sets of new textbooks will be about 300,000 VND(12.9 USD) each, nearly double compared to existing textbooks. The Governmentwill not subsidise the new textbooks, he added.

“The city will spend a part of its budget for schools on buying several sets oftextbooks for students with financial difficulties to use if they cannot affordto buy them,” Hieu said.

To meet the demands of the new training programme, Hieu said that ensuringenough classrooms for first-graders is a challenge because schools face ashortage of classrooms. The city’s land fund for building more schools islimited.

The new training programme will require first-graders to study throughout theday. In the morning shift, students will study Vietnamese, maths, and othersubjects. In the afternoon shift, they will receiving instruction throughactivities.

Seventy percent of students study during the day, he said, adding that the ratein Tân Phú District is only 23 percent. First-graders there will study six daysper week instead of five days if they study throughout the day.

The city has instructed educational sup-departments and schools to review theirfacilities and teaching aids and devices, Hieu said.

The city has 551 primary schools, including 484 public schools, an increase offour compared to the previous academic year.

There are 3,550 classrooms for the first grade in the 2020-22 schoolyear, witha shortage of 443, according to the department.

Hieu has instructed schools to use classrooms, halls, and schoolyards toorganise activities to teach skills to first-graders if they lack classrooms./.