Vietnam has a salary policy that proves nothing less than an insult to
teachers and goes against its overall spirit of respecting those working in the
education sector, a prominent educator said Tuesday at a conference on
education reforms in Hanoi.
Professor Hoang Tuy, a
85-year-old mathematician who is among the country’s best in his area,
complained it is extremely unfair that executives at state-owned enterprises,
which operate with modest efficiency, earn tens of times more than university
professors do.
A teacher with 25 years of
experience receives a mere VND4.1 to 4.7 million (up to US$226) a month, while
a fresh college graduate can earn as much as VND5 million ($240) per month if
he chooses to work in the private sector.
Such meager salaries play a major
part in wrongdoings and academic dishonesty in education, the professor said.
He added that teachers should be
remunerated better if the education system is to be reformed.
“Efforts to improve our education
will not pay off without raising teachers’ salary first,” Prof. Tuy insisted.
“Our current salary policy indicates nothing other than an affront to
educators.”
As part of his proposal to better
the education system, the mathematician suggested directing two-thirds of
middle school graduates to vocational schools and the others to high schools to
prepare for higher learning.
This suggestion came against the
backdrop that undergraduate programs are presently the sole aim of Vietnamese
school students as many tend to view a university degree as the only way to
succeed in life.
Prof. Tuy recommended lightening
the current curriculum because students seem to be assigned with too much
schoolwork.
High school students should be
spared from a tense graduation exam at the end of grade 12, which can be
replaced by a more relaxed one, the academic said, adding that the Ministry of
Education and Training (MoET) should return the preparation of college
admission tests to universities and junior colleges themselves.
Tertiary schools had been allowed
to give such tests until 2002 when MoET stepped in to set the tests. They have
been required to admit students based on their performance on the tests ever
since.
Prof. Ho Ngoc Dai, who once
designed a training program for a MoET pilot project, proposed cutting formal
education to 9 years from the current 12 years, as he thought that is enough
for basic education.
Vietnamese formal education now
consists of 5 years of elementary school, 4 years of middle school, and 3 years
of high school.
Prof. Van Nhu Cuong, another
veteran educator, agreed with his peer, adding that education officials should
eliminate “redundant” and “unnecessary” knowledge from the curriculum to
realize Prof. Dai’s idea.
“Much of what high school
students are learning is only suitable for math majors who want to explore it
at university,” Prof. Cuong pointed out.
He noted that failure to teach
students “to be humans” is a serious shortcoming of Vietnam’s education, which
refers to the fact that schoolgoers are merely stuffed with academic knowledge
rather than necessary skills to behave and survive out there.
“It takes time to correct this
mistake,” he said.
TUOI TRE
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