Education expert Le Dong Phuong raised a paradox: "Through the year-end reports, the majority of students are classified as good and excellent, and only a very small number of students are considered weak, so why do society and parents have to worry about extra classes and tutoring?"
“If all the students are good and excellent, why do we have to worry about extra classes? This is a paradox that I cannot explain. If the learning assessment results are true, I think only students who are assessed as weak and poor need to worry about extra classes as an urgent matter,” Dr. Le Dong Phuong (former officer of the Vietnam Institute of Educational Sciences) expressed his concern about the issue of extra teaching and learning that is receiving public and social attention.
According to Mr. Phuong, the whole society, parents and teachers have the same perspective. “On social networks, many teachers are worried and complaining that their income will decrease if they do not teach extra classes. But they themselves should also review their students' overall academic performance. If they are quite good, is it really necessary to take extra classes? Parents should also consider, if their children have good results, is it really necessary to take extra classes and cram more knowledge?”, Mr. Phuong shared.
Dr. Phuong emphasized that education is a social field that people are very interested in and pay attention to developments in policies and activities of the sector. Vietnamese people often have a comparative and contrastive mindset. Therefore, in the psychology of both society and educational managers, educational achievements are often used as a measure of the success of an individual or group. That forms the mindset of "must be better and better".
“The disease of achievement has been deeply ingrained in the Vietnamese educational mindset. The story of extra classes has therefore become "hot". That is, if you are good, you still want to be better. If your child is doing well, he must study well, if he is good, he must study even better, with the goal of achieving higher results. To do that, there are many forms of extra classes. Therefore, extra classes have become a factor that goes hand in hand with academic results and achievements,” said Mr. Phuong.
This doctor further analyzed that the Ministry of Education and Training has seen the story of 'virtual achievements' and that 'virtual achievements' have the contribution of extra classes. Besides, some teachers have also transferred part of the content of the main curriculum to the extra class program. Thus, students who do not attend extra classes (for various reasons) will not achieve the best results.
According to Mr. Phuong, extra classes are only intended to nurture students who really need them, while students who are considered to be good students do not need extra classes. Mr. Phuong believes that a part of public opinion and society is "infatuated" with extra classes, which also shows a loss of direction in education, when people do not know exactly what they are going to school for.
“Many people only think that going to school is for higher education, so they try their best to study without knowing what that knowledge will bring to the next generation,” said Mr. Phuong.
To overcome this, according to Mr. Phuong, society needs to think correctly about: "What is the purpose of studying?" before changing its thinking. "I think it is unfair to use the reason of needing to teach extra classes to justify increasing income. Teachers first need to think about their responsibilities and obligations. That is, the obligation of a teacher is to convey and help students understand all the knowledge prescribed in the program. If the salary and bonus in the mechanism are not satisfactory, the teacher should go do other jobs. We should not demand that this is a noble profession on the one hand but justify it on the other hand by saying 'I want to have a lot of money so I will do things that are not noble'."
According to Mr. Phuong, managers also have to recalculate the program implementation standards for those working in the education sector. “Because teachers nowadays are quite hard-working. They have to do a lot of nameless work, not just simply teaching in class.”
Circular 29 regulating extra teaching and learning of the Ministry of Education and Training is still attracting public attention. Regarding this issue, Deputy Minister of Education and Training Pham Ngoc Thuong affirmed that the viewpoint of the Ministry of Education and Training is to aim for schools that do not have extra teaching and learning. Instead, after school hours of subjects according to the program, students have time and space to participate in recreational activities, sports, fine arts, music, etc.
The circular aims to ensure that time in general schools is not only for learning knowledge but also for students to develop comprehensively in terms of personality, lifestyle, sense of responsibility and ability to integrate into society, and practice problem-solving skills. Teachers, educators and the whole society agree on this; students do not have to take too many extra classes, causing unnecessary pressure and fatigue, so that every day at school is a happy day.
With only one day left until the circular takes effect, parents are still having conflicting arguments. Before the announcement of stopping extra classes from a series of schools, some parents breathed a sigh of relief as their children were less pressured in their studies. However, many people expressed concerns about how to manage their children if they will have an extra session at home, instead of being at school all day like before. In addition, when registering their children for extra classes at the center, they will spend a lot more money than when they study at school.
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Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/hoc-sinh-toan-dat-danh-hieu-kha-gioi-sao-phai-lo-chuyen-di-hoc-them-2370821.html
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