General education program 2018

At the end of a cycle of replacing textbooks according to the 2018 generaleducation program, the shortcomings gradually revealed... Reality shows that the program and textbooks not only make students "chop off the road" but also cause an imbalance in career orientation when going to university.

Lesson 1: Carving a plow in the middle of the road

According to the 2018 General Education Program, students are allowed to register for a subject combination that suits their abilities, strengths and career orientation, but in reality, the right to rearrange depends on the specific situation of teachers and facilities of each school.

Parents panic

From the 2022-2023 school year, high school will enter the 2018 General Education Program. Students are required to study 4 subjects: Math, Literature, Foreign Language, History. The remaining subjects are selected according to the combination that suits their future career orientation. Students choose 4 out of 9 subjects. However, the division of subject groups is based on 2 factors: the existing teaching staff and the university's admission combinations.

Candidates taking the final high school graduation exam of the 2006 education program. Photo: NGOC TU

After the candidate is admitted, the school will provide a ready-made “menu” for registration. But this is only a necessary condition. Ms. Tran Thi Thanh, Hai Ba Trung district, said that in the 2024-2025 school year, her child was admitted to a high school in Hoang Mai district. When choosing a class, although the school provides a “menu” of groups for parents and students to choose from, it also includes a message that students will be selected and oriented towards their future careers based on their exam scores. For example, students with exam scores in the top group will be in Natural Science classes. The remaining students will be in Social Science or Natural Science 3, 4 classes, etc.

According to the reality of high schools across the country, when implementing the 2018 General Education Program, the general spirit is to plan teaching and divide the selection combination based on the staff and existing facilities of the schools. Some subjects, although included in the program, are in demand by students, but not all schools organize teaching such as the special subjects of Fine Arts and Music.

According to the 2018 General Education Program, transferring schools for high school students also faces many difficulties: One program has 3 sets of textbooks, and the schools choose differently. Each class has different elective subjects, choices, and subject clusters. If many students transfer and choose different elective subjects, it will be difficult to arrange teachers to support students and organize assessments. Finally, assigning classes for students is difficult and takes more time.

In the first school year of implementing the textbook replacement for high school students according to the 2018 General Education Program (2022-2023), parents and schools are confused and bewildered when transferring schools and accepting students. Some parents in Hanoi are in an ironic situation. They want to transfer their children to another school after the first semester, but the school they are attending is one of the few schools in Hanoi that teaches both Fine Arts and Music in the elective subject groups.

The design of the subjects in the school’s elective subject combination has been “fixed”, so students cannot choose individual subjects. The irony is that every combination the school designs has 2 subjects: Fine Arts and Music. Whether they want it or not, students have to study to have enough 4 elective subjects according to the school’s design. Therefore, when transferring to a school that does not have Fine Arts and Music, students will have to replace them with 2 other subjects.

At that time, the Ministry of Education and Training had no instructions, so parents were confused and it could be said that the design of the above high school was to make it difficult for parents to retain students. After that, the Ministry of Education and Training had to issue a document instructing that if the school transferred to the same combination as the student was choosing, they could transfer after the end of the first semester. But if the combination was not the same, they could only transfer after the end of the school year. Up to now, the above high school has no longer forced parents to put two subjects "only available" in all the combinations chosen.

According to the reflection of high school leaders, the most difficult thing when transferring schools is for students who are studying the combination of subjects chosen and the study topics at the school they are transferring to do not match the school they are transferring to. The school receiving the student needs to have a plan and appropriate solutions to support students in supplementing knowledge and skills in the new subject so that the student has the capacity to continue studying the new subject in the next class.

Students "turn around" in time

Experts say that students entering grade 10 basically lack career guidance information. Some parents and students are not aware of the importance of choosing subjects, so they often choose subjects that are easy to learn and easy to get high scores on graduation exams. Changes in university admissions, the emergence of many entrance exams such as thinking assessment exams, ability assessment exams... make schools and students confused.

Mr. Nguyen Quang Tung, Principal of Lomonosov High School (Hanoi) said that in 2025, the school will have 350 students taking the high school graduation exam. According to regulations, students are required to take two subjects: Literature and Math. The remaining elective subjects chosen by 12th graders of the school are as follows: Physics with 145 students, Chemistry with 39 students, Biology with only 9 students, History with 97 students, Geography with 90 students, Economic and Legal Education with 73 students, English is the school's strength, so 337 students choose it. To increase the chance of university admission, it is expected that about 120 students of Lomonosov High School will register to take the 2025 competency assessment exam of Hanoi National University. The thinking assessment exam of Hanoi University of Science and Technology has over 60 students taking the exam.

However, Mr. Tung said that out of the total 350 students of the school, 62 students did not choose any subjects that overlapped with the subjects related to the competency assessment test of Hanoi National University, because these students registered for the elective subjects 3 years ago (when they entered grade 10). Recently, Hanoi National University announced the adjustment of the competency assessment test according to the 2018 General Education Program.

Every year, Mr. Tung has to consider about 15 students who have chosen the wrong subject. The Ministry of Education and Training has provided guidance, but students really have difficulty when they are one semester or one school year behind their peers. Therefore, Mr. Tung hopes that the Ministry of Education and Training needs to have a certain stability in the enrollment plan and announce it early. The university enrollment plan needs to be stable and available early so that students can orient their careers. "High schools have career orientation for students, but there is too little time. I hope that teachers at the secondary level will provide in-depth orientation from grade 9 so that when students reach high school, they can choose the right subjects, not make mistakes or be caught off guard," said Mr. Tung.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Nhiep, Principal of Chu Van An High School (Hanoi) shared that the school has 6 groups of subjects to choose from for 10th graders. After 3 years of implementing the 2018 General Education Program, she noticed that some students who planned to study abroad after graduating from high school had their applications rejected by foreign universities because they did not study Physics and Chemistry. According to Ms. Nhiep, for 11th graders who did not choose these 2 subjects but now have a need to adjust, the school also creates conditions to make up for the 10th grade program and organizes additional tests for students to meet the conditions.

Mr. Nguyen Quang Tung said that choosing subjects from grade 10, while the university entrance exam changes every year, will make it difficult for students. Not only that, some students only discovered after a year of studying that they had chosen the “wrong subject” and asked to change to another combination.

Source: https://danviet.vn/chuong-trinh-giao-duc-pho-thong-2018-vua-hoc-vua-xoay-20241212065714931.htm