Teachers teaching two subjects must 'step by step'

The document on developing a plan for teaching natural sciences, history and geography, experiential activities, and career guidance, signed by Deputy Minister of Education and Training Pham Van Thuong, stated that the implementation of integrated teaching in recent times shows that the assignment of teachers and scheduling of teaching and learning are still difficult and problematic.

Bộ GD-ĐT hướng dẫn dạy tích hợp: Giáo viên dạy từ 2 phân môn phải 'từng bước' - Ảnh 1. — Many teachers call the integration of history and geography at secondary school level a "forced kiss".

Therefore, the Ministry of Education and Training has issued some notes for schools to assign teachers, develop plans and organize teaching of integrated subjects, experiential activities, and career guidance, and at the same time develop a framework for tutoring plans for educational institutions to refer to.

Specifically, in the subject of natural science (junior high school level), the Ministry of Education and Training requires schools to assign teachers to ensure that the teachers' professional training is consistent with the assigned teaching content (according to the content lines of matter and change of matter, energy and change, living things, earth and sky).

"The assignment of teachers who have been trained and professionally developed to teach two content streams or the entire subject program must be carried out step by step, ensuring the professional requirements of teachers to ensure teaching quality," the document stated.

The Ministry of Education and Training also directed to continue developing teaching plans in accordance with the content flow according to the subject program. In case of difficulties in arranging timetables, it is necessary to be flexible in terms of time and timing of implementing content flows or topics of the program to arrange timetables in accordance with the assignment of teachers, meeting the requirements of scientificity, pedagogy (ensuring that the previous teaching content is the basis for the following teaching content) and the implementation ability of teachers.

History taught alongside geography

In the newly issued guidance document, for this subject, the Ministry of Education and Training guides schools to develop teaching plans for each history and geography subject instead of learning according to the knowledge flow like natural sciences. These subjects are also arranged to be taught simultaneously in each semester in accordance with the practical conditions of the school.

Regarding the testing and evaluation of both integrated subjects, the Ministry of Education and Training guides that regular testing and evaluation are carried out during the teaching process; Teachers who teach which content will conduct testing and evaluation for that content. The principal assigns the teacher in charge of the subject in each class to coordinate with the teacher who teaches the subject in that class to unify regular assessment scores, ensure the assessment scores according to regulations, synthesize scores, record scores, and make comments in the student monitoring and assessment book and report card.

What adjustments do teachers expect with "integration"?

Recently, Thanh Nien Newspaper published a series of articles reflecting the opinions of teachers and education experts on the many shortcomings of implementing integrated subject teaching at secondary school level and proposed the solution of "returning to the old way", separating integrated subjects into single subjects.

Regarding history and geography, many teachers and history experts have recently called the integration of these two subjects and the current way of doing it a "forced marriage" and hope that the "divorce" will take place as soon as possible.

On August 15, at a "meeting" with teachers nationwide, in response to teachers' concerns about integrated teaching, the Minister of Education and Training also agreed, shared and said that from checking and collecting opinions from experts, education managers, and teachers in localities, we realized that this is a bottleneck and a difficult point. There are some teachers who can teach all the subjects in the integrated subject, but the majority still teach separate subjects. Especially in remote, isolated, and disadvantaged areas, although teacher training has been implemented, there are still great difficulties.

Also according to Minister Nguyen Kim Son, based on the actual implementation, the leaders of the Ministry of Education and Training will decide to consider adjusting the teaching of integrated subjects at secondary school level in the coming time. "We will continue to persevere with integrated teaching at primary level because we have done well so far, but for secondary school level, the Ministry of Education and Training will consult with experts and will likely make adjustments. If so, this will be a major adjustment," said Mr. Son.

However, the guidance document that the Ministry of Education and Training has just issued does not show any significant adjustments, but only reiterates and provides more specific guidance on implementing integrated subject teaching in the condition that most schools do not have teachers trained to teach integrated subjects.

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