Teachers complain that they have got confused with the programme to ease the overloading in curricula. While the lessons for students have been cut, teachers still have become overloaded.

The HCM City Education and Training Department is delivering documents to guide teachers to cut some unnecessary lessons. This is a part of the program to ease the curricula which are believed to be too heavy for students.

As for history, a lot of lessons will become optional lessons, or they will be merged into each other and removed from the curricula.

Vu Quang Tho, a senior official of the Phu Nhuan district’s education and training sub-department, said that removing some lessons and cutting some parts of lessons are also a useful method for easing curricula. Since there will be less lessons, teachers will be able to spend more time on renovating teaching methods and help reinforce students’ knowledge.

At the conference on discussing the main tasks in the 2011-2012 academic year, the HCM City Education and Training Department, history teachers were told that though some lessons have been removed, but if the lessons contain necessary knowledge, teachers will still have to mention the knowledge in the next teaching hours. However, the knowledge will not be required in exam questions.

Nguyen Ngoc Tan, history teacher of the Hai Ba Trung Secondary School, said that teachers now have to compare the knowledge in the standard book and the documents on easing curricula, in order to reasonably arrange time for teaching hours. Besides, teachers also have to spend time for other activities such as showing films or team discussions.

A lot of teachers complain that they have to buy new textbooks, or spend time on comparing the old textbooks and the documents provided by the Ministry of Education and Training. The problem is that only the 2011 textbooks are considered “standard”.

Easing curricula should be associated with renovation examination scheme

Hoang Thi Diem Trang, Deputy Headmaster of the Gia Dinh High School, said that teachers have to compare the documents guiding the curricula easing and the teachers’ book on skill standards, or students would face big difficulties during the studying.

While a lot of history lessons have been cut, only minor changes have been made with the teaching of literature. A literature teacher in Nha Be district said that the literature curricula for high school students are relatively heavy for students, but there have been no big changes with the curricula so far. Especially, the examination scheme remains unchanged.

Meanwhile, a lot of teachers complain that the program on easing curricula has made everything more confused. Nguyen Dinh Thinh, Headmaster of the Hoang Hoa Tham High School, said that many lessons have been cut, but teachers believe that this is an “unscientific” method.

Can the efforts to ease curricula really help ease the overloading for students? Thinh said “no”. The problem is that students learn to pass exams. If the volume of knowledge provided at lessons has been eased, but the exam questions remain unchanged, the curricula easing would not have much significance.

Therefore, Thinh said, in order to successfully ease the curricula to help ease the overloading, it is necessary to renovate the examination scheme as well. “I think that teachers do not have to refer to the guiding documents by the Ministry of Education and Training all the time,” Thinh said.

Sharing the same view with Thinh, Huynh Minh Canh, an official of the Tien Giang province Education and Training Department, said that the guiding documents cannot ease the overloading, but make teachers more confused.