Representatives of the Ministry of Education and Training discussed with Thanh Nien reporters about changes and additions to the regulations, and also talked about new regulations to "tighten" the supervision of students' research process at schools.
CLEARLY DETERMINE THE NUMBER OF PROJECTS
The new regulation clearly states the number of projects that units are allowed to register for the competition instead of including it in the annual guidance document as in the old regulation. Specifically, the number of projects has increased: the Department of Education and Training is allowed to register a maximum of 3 projects (previous years' guidance was 2 projects). As for the Department of Education and Training of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, each unit is allowed to register a maximum of 6 projects (previous years' guidance was 4 projects).
New regulations on national science and technology research competitions have just been issued by the Ministry of Education and Training to "tighten" the supervision of students' research process.
ILLUSTRATION: NGOC DUONG
For participating units that are schools under the Ministry of Education and Training, universities, colleges, institutes, and academies, each unit can register a maximum of 2 projects. The unit hosting the competition can register a maximum of 6 projects. For the unit hosting the competition, the Department of Education and Training of Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, each unit can register a maximum of 12 projects.
Speaking to Thanh Nien reporter, Associate Professor Nguyen Xuan Thanh, Director of the Department of Secondary Education (Ministry of Education and Training), explained: "Previously, the number of national competition projects was large and had to be organized in both the North and South. However, when the Covid-19 epidemic occurred, the Ministry of Education and Training decided to reduce the number of national competition projects. Therefore, compared to recent years, the number of competition projects under the new regulations has increased, but compared to before the Covid-19 epidemic, it has decreased a lot.
Regarding the number of projects, in fact, educational institutions still want to increase it more than the regulations, but before deciding, the Ministry of Education and Training considered many different factors and found that the number was appropriate for the nature of the national competition. With about 200 projects, it is enough for the organizing units and still ensures that it is only organized once for the whole country instead of having to organize in both the North and the South as before. Besides, this is a national competition, so it requires local educational institutions, universities... to carefully select the projects to participate, ensuring the highest quality while not having too many projects."
SCHOOL GUIDE IS REQUIRED
The new regulations also add regulations on research supervisors. Accordingly, the strict regulations are as follows: "Each competition project must have at least 1 research supervisor who is a teacher or staff member with expertise appropriate to the competition project and is working at the educational institution where the candidate is studying. Each research supervisor can only supervise 1 competition project (the old regulation was a maximum of 2) in one competition."
The regulation that the research supervisor must be "a teacher or staff member working at the educational institution where the candidate is studying" is considered by many to be an important change to rectify the situation where high schools or individual students only invite supervisors who are scientific researchers, university lecturers, etc., leading to the candidates' research products being suspected of being more the supervisor's than their actual efforts and abilities.
Director Nguyen Xuan Thanh said that requiring research instructors to have expertise appropriate to the competition project aims to highlight the role of teachers and schools in promoting students' scientific research capacity and passion, from the stage of discovering and nurturing students' scientific research ability. During the process of teaching, guiding practice and experiments, teachers and school staff are the ones who understand their students' capacity best.
However, Mr. Thanh also said: "In addition to the mandatory requirement of having an instructor who is a teacher or staff member working at the school (with the principal's decision), the new regulations do not stipulate but also do not prohibit inviting an instructor who is an expert outside the school where the candidate is studying."
Judges grade students' research products at the city-level Science and Technology competition for students in Ho Chi Minh City.
INCREASE RESPONSIBILITY FOR MONITORING THE RESEARCH PROCESS
Thanh Nien reporter raised the question: For a long time, the science and technology research competition for students has always made the public wonder whether the products, research projects, and awards are really from students or from adults and research instructors? So what provisions does the newly issued regulation have to more closely monitor this issue during the research process of students?
Mr. Nguyen Xuan Thanh said that to ensure that the projects and research products registered for the contest are truly those of students, the new regulations add provisions to affirm the responsibility and very important role of each educational institution where candidates have projects to participate in the contest. Specifically, the regulations require educational institutions to publicly announce the objectives, content, requirements, evaluation criteria of the contest projects and the form of organizing the contest so that teachers and staff can discover and guide students in choosing topics and developing research plans.
The new regulations supplement and clarify the requirement that educational institutions publicly announce the objectives, content, requirements, evaluation criteria for competition projects and the form of competition organization so that teachers and staff can discover and guide students in choosing topics and developing research plans.
Teachers and staff who have guided students to develop a research plan shall report to the professional group for the professional group to report and request the head of the educational institution to review and approve; the head of the educational institution shall approve the research plan and the instructor as requested by the professional group; direct the professional group to monitor and support the student's research process according to the approved research plan; the educational institution shall organize the evaluation of the student's project, select the project of the educational institution and send it to the participating unit for evaluation and selection according to the instructions of the participating unit.
"Thus, the role of the school community in each contestant's product is especially important. With the above steps, the school's teachers and students will know and have a mechanism to monitor and supervise the entire research process of the school's teachers and students. This regulation is to attach the school's responsibility to each research step of students and instructors," said Mr. Xuan Thanh.
Increase the number of awards, why?
Regarding awards, the new regulations stipulate that the total number of awards of the competition shall not exceed 60% (the old regulation was 50%) of the total number of projects participating in the competition.
Mr. Nguyen Xuan Thanh said: "The 10% increase in the total number of awards calculated by the Ministry of Education and Training is appropriate. As mentioned above, the Ministry of Education and Training controls the number of projects registered for the national competition, requiring localities to select more carefully, ensuring that the best quality projects participate in the competition at the highest level. Therefore, increasing the rate of award-winning projects is also appropriate to the quality of projects competing at this level, the Ministry only controls the number of first prizes at no more than 10%".
Additional cases of criminal violations
In addition to the rights, the new regulations also add responsibilities to the contestants. Specifically, contestants must be responsible for their contest projects according to the regulations and guidelines for organizing the contest of the Ministry of Education and Training; must register for the contest according to the contest unit; participate in the contest according to the instructions of the Ministry of Education and Training and the contest steering committee.
The new regulation adds provisions on handling violations, including criminal violations. Accordingly, for violations with signs of criminality, educational management agencies will prepare records and send them to competent authorities for consideration and handling according to regulations. For other violations, depending on the nature and severity of the violation, disciplinary action will be taken according to prescribed forms.
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