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The teaching of history has been slammed for years in Vietnam as K-12 students are forced to memorize everything from big events to trivial details. Many say history has thus become a burden for learners, as evidenced by a recent incident in which students at a Ho Chi Minh City high school tore exam outlines to pieces and shouted out in joy. 

Hundreds of 12^th-graders at Nguyen Hien High School, located in District 11, smashed their exam outlines for history, which had been written by their teachers in preparation for the national high school graduation tests in June, and scattered them in the schoolyard late last month after the Ministry of Education and Training announced the subject would not be included in the final exam.

This stems from their fear for history since they are required to remember every single date and battle and other particulars in a very mechanical way, according to Nguyen Canh Tan, Nguyen Hien’s principal.

“Most students are extremely afraid of history when it comes to learning it and taking exams,” Tan said.

They would probably have torn the outlines for geography or any other similar subject given current teaching methodology, said Le Hong Son, director of the city Department of Education and Training.

Vietnamese students are learning history by rote and asked to repeat what they were taught like a parrot during exams, with little room for inferences or analyses.

So they simply lifted a weight off their shoulders following the ministry’s announcement, Dr. Dinh Phuong Duy, chairman of a city education and psychology society, explained.

This incident acted as an indication of students growing tired of history, Dr. Duy said, blaming this weariness on the teaching methods.   

It is understandable against the backdrop that history has been ignored and deemed as a “minor subject”, Dr. Vo Van Sen, president of a municipal social science university, said, adding that students meet merely one or two times for history each week.

In Vietnam, high school students are required to sit for tests on six subjects chosen and published by the education in their graduation exam.

This year they will take tests in math, literature, foreign languages (either English, Russia, French, Chinese, German or Japanese), biology, chemistry, and geography.