Ministry of Education guides teaching integrated subjects

The Ministry of Education and Training instructs schools to prioritize teaching Natural Sciences according to the curriculum, while History and Geography are taught as two sub-subjects simultaneously.

On October 24, the Ministry of Education and Training issued a document instructing localities to remove difficulties in teaching Natural Sciences, History and Geography, experiential activities, and career guidance.

Specifically, the Natural Science subject has four main content streams, including: Matter and its transformation, Energy and transformation, Living things, Earth and the sky. The Ministry recommends assigning teachers with expertise appropriate to the teaching content. Allowing teachers to teach two or more content streams or the entire subject must be done step by step, ensuring expertise.

The Ministry noted that schools should develop teaching plans that are suitable for the content flow, flexible to arrange scientific timetables, ensuring pedagogy and teachers' implementation ability.

Regarding testing and evaluation, the subject teachers in each class will coordinate with other teachers to unify the scores. The matrix and content of the periodic test need to be built in accordance with the content and teaching time of the program.

For History and Geography , schools can arrange to teach two sub-subjects, History and Geography, at the same time during the semester. Regular and periodic testing and evaluation are also carried out during the teaching process of each sub-subject.

Students of Thanh An Secondary School, Can Gio District, Ho Chi Minh City go to school on October 20, 2021. Photo: Quynh Tran — Students of Thanh An Secondary School, Can Gio District, Ho Chi Minh City go to school on October 20, 2021. Photo: *Quynh Tran*

In addition, for experiential and career guidance activities , the school assigns teachers with expertise appropriate to each content, giving priority to teachers in charge of each topic.

For example, for nature-oriented topics, Geography teachers will have an advantage in helping students learn and mobilize knowledge and skills about environmental protection and natural landscape conservation. Technology teachers have an advantage in career-oriented topics, helping students learn about equipment, labor tools and safety skills.

The experience process can be an individual, small group or large group activity, inside and outside the classroom, inside and outside the school, depending on the content and nature of the activity.

According to the new program, from 2021, secondary school students will not study Biology, Physics, Chemistry, History, and Geography separately, but will study Natural Sciences, History and Geography, called integrated subjects.

In theory, this subject only needs one person to be in charge, but because most teachers today are trained to teach a single subject, schools often assign teachers to each subject to teach that subject, and whoever's lesson it is, that person will teach it. Some schools arrange teachers to teach each subject in the book in turn, so the timetable is messed up, some teachers teach dozens of periods a week but some weeks they don't have enough periods.

In mid-August, Minister Nguyen Kim Son admitted that integrated teaching was one of the biggest bottlenecks and difficulties in implementing the new program, and could be adjusted.

Many people, including teachers, have proposed separating these subjects into single subjects as before. A survey by VnExpress on August 29 showed that more than 3,900 out of nearly 4,400 people wanted this.

However, Associate Professor Dr. Chu Cam Tho, Head of the Education Evaluation Research Department, Vietnam Institute of Educational Sciences, said that it would be a pity if integrated subjects were separated into individual subjects, because integrated teaching is the right policy, helping students develop qualities and abilities as the goal of the new program. According to her, schools should be given the opportunity to be autonomous in this matter. Schools that are doing well should be encouraged to continue, and those that are struggling should be supported.

Previously, to meet the requirements of teaching integrated subjects, the Ministry of Education and Training issued a training program for teachers, with a duration of 20-36 credits. In about 6 months, a History teacher is trained to teach Geography, and the same goes for other subjects.

Duong Tam

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