The Shortcoming of Vietnamese Educational System

Education is the root of development of every country all over the world and Vietnam is not an exception. But after what I had been experienced I thought that Vietnamese educational system is still weak. It's weak because of so many problems that exist on such as bad teaching quality; lecture does not go together with practice and high tuition's fee. Furthermore, the training is not linked with students' majors. And those problems will ruin the Vietnamese educational system if they don't change. Nowadays, so many Vietnamese students complain that what they had learned are just lessons. Most of the time, they have mutely sit with dull eyes and insipid faces for listening the lecture. In that situation, can teachers recognize their students understood what they had learned? It is not easy for teacher discover how much students understood by what they were taught. Students can't even raise their hands to express their viewpoints and have no courage to ask for more information when they have not understood something. In other words, they are afraid of teacher would criticize them if they are wrong. After that, we could see how bad the Vietnamese teaching quality is. Not only bad teaching quality but also the lessons don't go together with lecture. The Vietnamese educational system focuses so much on academic theories but ignore applying them into practice. They just give out exams after lecturing time, and they don't even think that students truly love what they learning or they just study to pass the exams. For example, we can give a ninth grade mathematic problem for a sixth grade Vietnamese student to solve, and he could do it easily. But when we tell him to do a lab's report for biology or chemistry, he can't do it. Also, most examinations only require students to remember what they take notes in class. This encourages learners to learn like a parrot not students, and then after leaving the examining rooms, these "parrots" remember nothing. One more problem that we will easily pull out at every single Vietnamese school is high tuition's fee. In Vietnam, the educational system costs students so much money which is not reasonable such as trash money, electric money, or any kind of utility money...... sum up all of these amounts, we could receive a big number. And that is why in Vietnam; only wealthy families are able to give their kids to go to school. Vietnamese system does not have the financing way as any other European countries or American, so they force their students have to pay all the fees at one time or two times in a semester. If students are not able for paying or missing one of those fees, they can't go to school or mark as failing students until these tasks had been done. Vietnamese educational system still have so many problem that they need to fix. It's time for changing those problems. First of all, there should be more classes in which teachers, ask more questions and students are expected to answer all the questions. For example, teacher can divide class into small groups for doing do the tasks that the teacher orders instead of the old traditional teaching way that Vietnamese education usually uses to teach the students. And they need to put more time after the lecturing time for helping the students who don't understand the entire problem during the class. It will force students think more about the lessons beside hearing what are from lecturing time, and it will make students reveal their weaknesses, also train them to correct these mistakes. In addition, these classes should have more extracurricular and practical activities such as physical education, chemistry, and biology's lab. For instance, more labs need to add for chemistry, biology and physics classes beside the traditional lecturing time or students should be given chances to join hands in community activities such as Earth Hours, as well as social campaign to assist the community, give charity to the poor. That would help students more being active; prepare some skills for their futures such as teamwork, the ability of management, and social communication's skill. And those extracurricular activities could also keep those students' loves with their classes. Another problem also needs to change that is the tuition's fee. So many students could not go to school or drop out of school because of this reason. For example, they can low their fees, cut down some unnecessary fees, or build up the financing department. That way would encourage their students to go school instead of forcing them to pay off their education's debts. In conclusion, Teaching should mean instilling in students a thirst for knowledge and the methodology for them to discover things by themselves, if teachers believe that their role is to convey knowledge to students, they should choose the best teaching method which does not erase the ability in creative thinking of students. We hope that system will change in some days, Vietnamese students will be educated like the "No Child Left Behind" Act. And the word "teaching" will be developed correctly.