The conference was attended by leaders of the Department of Education and Training of Thu Duc City and 21 districts, along with principals of secondary and high schools implementing international informatics programs and advanced, integrated models in Ho Chi Minh City.
Strive for digitalization by 2030
Opening the conference, Mr. Nguyen Van Hieu, Director of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City, said that Ho Chi Minh City is focusing all resources on building a smart city with a focus on developing information technology and digital communications.
In addition, the projects assigned by the central government and the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee also aim to develop the city into a major educational center of the region and the country, training high-quality human resources, integrating internationally, and in line with the global digital transformation orientation.
Therefore, the role of the education sector is extremely important. How to make teachers fully aware of the requirements, create space and conditions for students to access international skill standards early and promptly.
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A digital technology application lesson at a school in Ho Chi Minh City. |
To achieve these goals, digital transformation is one of the important tasks to improve the quality of education and training, focusing on the tasks of improving digital skills and digital capacity of human resources.
“In Ho Chi Minh City, the education and training sector needs to consistently implement digital transformation goals with a clear learning roadmap during the implementation of the general education program, aiming to bring all components of the education system into the digital environment by 2030,” said the Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training.
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Director of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City Nguyen Van Hieu emphasized the role of digital transformation in the field of education and training. |
In particular, teaching and learning information technology in general schools according to international standards, including ICDL standards from grades 1 to 12, is necessary and important.
Using international digital competency criteria helps standardize learners' information technology competencies, bringing many benefits to students, thereby helping the future workforce have enough confidence to compete in the context of globalization.
The head of the Ho Chi Minh City education and training sector affirmed that teacher training needs to be improved to have a team of IT teachers who have a firm grasp of digital technology platforms and effectively guide students so that teachers and students can become essential factors for the digital transformation process.
Chief of Office of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City Ho Tan Minh shared that the concept of digital capacity appeared more than 20 years ago and is often used at the same time with the concepts of digital skills, information capacity, communication capacity or academic capacity.
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Chief of Office of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training Ho Tan Minh speaks at the conference |
However, today a huge amount of information exists in digital form and learners need to have the ability to analyze and think critically to evaluate and grasp how to use it to serve their learning and future work needs.
Currently, countries around the world are using a number of digital competency frameworks such as the Council of Europe's digital competency framework (DigComp), UNESCO's digital competency framework (Global Digital Literacy Framework)...
“Equipping students with digital skills helps expand their learning opportunities, access learning resources, enhance their creativity and problem-solving skills,” said Mr. Ho Tan Minh.
More than 100 schools implement international IT standards
Speaking at the conference, Ms. Nguyen Phuong Lan, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors, Director of EMG Education - one of the units implementing the international IT standard, said that after nearly 2 years of implementation, the international IT standard ICDL has been deployed in 75 primary, secondary and high schools. It is expected that in the 2023-2024 school year, there will be 34 more schools implementing it. After the first year of organization, many schools have boldly registered their students to take the ICDL certification exam with very positive results.
“International IT standards are not separate or overlap with the 2018 General Education Program, through which students have the opportunity to approach international standards, shortening the gap between IT skills and daily learning requirements,” Ms. Phuong Lan expressed.
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Conference overview |
As proof of this, Mr. Nguyen Vi Tuong Thuy, Principal of Nguyen Van To Secondary School (District 10) shared that in the recent IT certification exam, the whole school had 844/851 students receiving certificates. This is a very positive result, showing the readiness and ability of Vietnamese students to meet international standards.
This principal believes that the three important factors when implementing international IT standards are people, facilities and parental consent. At Nguyen Van To Secondary School, in the first phase of implementation, the conditions of facilities and equipment were not enough to meet the requirements of teaching IT 3 periods/week for all 40 classes in grades 6, 7, 8 - the three grades implementing the 2018 General Education Program. The unit flexibly used socialization solutions, mobilizing donors to participate in investment with a commitment that students would be able to use machines throughout grades 6 to 9. Thanks to that effort, the implementation was smooth and had high parental consent.
Mr. Damien O'Sullivan - Global General Director of ICDL Foundation said that ICDL is an IT standard that is not only widely used in European countries but also a trusted partner of governments in many countries around the world. Currently, the trend of many countries in the world is to harmoniously and consistently combine academic programs and international certificates. In particular, 5 digital skills are given special attention including collaborative technology, administrative skills in the digital environment, digital skills and network security, online commerce, and project technology skills.
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