10 most outstanding educational events in 2016

New Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha took office in April 2016.



1. The number of students registering to study at universities plummeted in 2016. Even top-tier schools reported the lack of hundreds of students.

Analysts said that going to university is no longer the favorite choice of the majority of high school graduates. Many of them now go to vocational schools rather than universities as state agencies repeatedly warned about the high unemployment rate of university graduates.

2. In early September, MOET released the draft regulation on the 2017 high-school finals with big changes. The exam will be organized in localities and hosted by local education departments.

The exam subjects will include math, literature, foreign languages, natural sciences (physics, chemistry and biology) and social sciences (history, geography and citizen education).

3. Newly appointed Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha took office in April. He said national education will witness triumph only when society has confidence in education.

He believes Vietnam’s education needs to shift to emphasize practical ability.

4. The information that the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences produces 20 PhDs a year stirred up the public and raised the worry about the quality of doctors. MOET said the cost of training PhDs in Vietnam is the lowest in the world, just VND15 million a year.

5. Debate continues about whether to apply VNEN (Viet Nam Escuela Nueva), the new school model. While educators affirmed that the model has many advantages, parents said their children's studying had become worse because of VNEN.

In some localities, authorities decided to stop VNEN amid strong protest from parents.

6.  The VND9 trillion national program on teaching foreign languages to general school students had problems.

When the new academic year began, the building of the roadmap to teach English at school as the second language was highlighted. However, analysts commented that this was a very heavy task which may not be fulfilled.

MOET has also decided to teach Russian, Chinese and Japanese as first foreign languages from 2017.

7. MOET has decided to reduce the time for university education from 4-6 years to 3-5 years.

This is expected to help students find jobs sooner, while it will also help reduce training time.

8. The program on re-compiling textbooks for general education, kicked off in 2015, and continued in 2016.

9. HCMC authorities in early 2016 imposed a ban on giving private tutoring lessons. However, the ban was lifted amid strong arguments about the issue.

10. School violence continues to be a burning issue. A lot of video clips were posted on the internet showing groups of students fighting, raising worries about the school environment.

Thanh Lich / vietnamnet