Jun 7, 2012

Vietnam - Copy-books for first graders have serious mistakes

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VietNamNet Bridge – Two thousands of the copy-books for first graders launched by the Da Nang Publishing House have been recalled after serious misspelled mistakes.

The mistakes were discovered by some parents, who bought the copy-books for their children to practice writing. In the copy-books, the parents were startled in surprise when reading the words that do not exist in the dictionary or encyclopedia. “Cay neu” (Tet pole) was misspelled as “Cay leu”, “gio” (death anniversary) was misspelled as “do.”

The information has raised a wave of anger among parents. “I cannot understand why such simple words can be written in the wrong way. I also cannot understand why the silly mistakes could not be discovered by the publishing house which has experts in different fields,” a parent said.

“If the mistakes had not been discovered, they would have caused immeasurable consequences, because children would suffer from the idioglossia,” he added.

Educators have agreed that the misspelled mistakes are very serious. Le Tien Thanh, Director of the Primary Education Department under the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) also said it’s a shame that such mistakes were made.

However, Thanh said that MOET only examines the textbooks used in the official curriculums, while it does not control the educational publications for reference. Therefore, the only thing Thanh can do is advising parents to buy the publications from prestigious publishing houses.

Who to blame?

To date, it remains unclear about who made the mistakes and had to take responsibility for these. All the people who got involved in the editing and publishing of the book were senior officers.

The persons responsible for publishing the copy-book with misspelled mistakes were Truong Cong Bao, Director of the Da Nang Publishing House and Hoang Van Cung, Editor in Chief of the Da Nang Publishing House. The book editor was Nguyen Kim Nhi, who, according to Bao, was an experienced editor of the publishing house.

Especially, the author of the copy book was Dang Thi Lanh, who once was Deputy Director of the Primary Education Department under MOET, and lecturer of the Hanoi University of Education.

Bao said to press agencies on May 30 that it took only several days to complete the copy book verification before the manuscript was sent off to press. Since there was just a few of pages, only one officer was assigned to make the editing.

He also said that the mistakes could not be corrected and he ordered to recall the books from circulation. The publishing house promised to contact the editor and the author to clarify the problem.

When asked where the mistakes were from, Bao said these could be the mistakes in manuscript, editing, examining or typographical errors.

Tran Xuan Nhi, Chair of the Alliance for Education for Vietnamese people, said that the publishing house must take the main responsibility for the mistakes. He has also noted that many people in the north speak with a lisp, and that general schools need to help students to treat the idioglossia.

Meanwhile, the author of the copy book – Dang Thi Lanh – affirmed that it was not her fault. The only thing she regretted that she did not check the manuscript before printing.

“I spent 38 years doing research and giving lectures on the Vietnamese phonology system, therefore, I believe that I will never make such silly mistakes. This is really unexpected misfortune.

Source: Dat Viet


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