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The Ministry of Education and Training is considering a plan to spend VND34 trillion (USD1.61 billion) on reforming textbooks and curriculum for general education.

The ministry submitted the plan to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee for consideration on April 14, before seeking a vote at the NA.

According to the plan, the ministry intends to maintain the 12-year general education system but students may have classes in two sessions, morning and afternoon, instead of the current one-period format.

The ministry also proposed resuming groups of subjects for students to choose from. This may be applied at all levels of education.

“The current classification of groups of subjects is just based on two fields: the natural sciences and the social sciences. Many have complained that this is too inflexible. The new methods of grouping subjects would widen the fields and give students more options. This would mean that both curriculum and class organisation and management should be changed as well,” said Nguyen Vinh Hien, Deputy Minister of Education and Training.

The ministry estimates that the compiling of textbooks for the new training programmes would be completed by the end of 2015, and the plan would be piloted before being widely applied at all education levels by 2030.

The large investment and short preparation time, however, stirred up the concerns of delegates at the NA’s committee.

NA Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung said textbook and training reform plan needs scrutiny 

NA Chairman, Nguyen Sinh Hung, said the 2016 deadline for preparation does not leave enough time, making it difficult for schools to ensure a qualified teaching staff and meet infrastructure standards.

Hien insisted that the plan is feasible, as the ministry would speed up teacher training by organising courses at universities of education along with using IT for long distance-training.

He estimated that the majority of schools in Vietnam already meet requirements for teaching staff, and it would take from one to two years to help the remaining schools improve the quality of their teachers.

Deputy Minister of Education and Training, Nguyen Vinh Hien, stands by plan 

Several other delegates voiced concerns over the efficiency of the investment plan, pointing out that currently the country has already spends 20% of its annual GDP on education and training.

“It’s not easy to implement such a large-scale plan and ensure the efficiency of the investment. It’s unacceptable to go down the old road of instituting plans which sound good on paper but become unmanageable upon implementation,” commented Phan Trung Ly, Chairman of the NA’s Legislation Committee.

Phan Xuan Dung, Chairman of the NA’s Committee for Science, Technology and Environment, proposed that textbooks and training programmes be changed in order to simplify complicated study materials, which would save students time that can be used on living skills and moral education.

Nguyen Sinh Hung, NA Chairman, required that the ministry submit the plan to the government for further scrutiny and adjustment and send it to the NA’s Committee for Culture, Education and Young People for appraisal before official submission to the NA’s 7th session at the end of May.