The student placement process is not effective.

On January 29th, the People's Committee of Kon Plông district ( Kon Tum province) announced that it had issued a document requesting the Department of Education and Training to strengthen inspection, reminders, and corrections to schools regarding teaching and learning. At the same time, the People's Committee also requested an urgent investigation and verification of the reported issues at Pờ Ê Primary School (Pờ Ê commune). This will determine the collective and individual responsibilities of those involved (if any).

Following the directives of the Kon Plông District People's Committee, the Department of Education and Training promptly investigated and verified the information. According to the Department of Education and Training, the reason why 4th and 5th grade students are slow in reading, writing, and arithmetic is due to their inconsistent attendance or absences. Therefore, teaching and tutoring to improve the quality of education for these students is difficult and has not been effective.

Many 4th and 5th graders in Kon Tum are slow at reading and writing; the assessment of students' performance is inadequate and they lack knowledge (Figure 1). — Many fourth and fifth graders at Pờ Ê Primary School still read and write slowly.

Furthermore, difficult family economic circumstances have led parents to neglect their children's education and instead rely entirely on the school. In addition, the teaching staff at Pờ Ê Primary School has experienced frequent turnover in recent years due to job transfers, with a large and unstable number of contract teachers, which negatively impacts the quality of education at the school.

Speaking with reporters, Mr. Nguyen Minh Cuong, Head of the Education and Training Department of Kon Plong District, said that the unit regularly checks the abilities of students and directs schools to provide additional training based on these assessments. However, at Po E Primary School, the student placement process is not effective, resulting in gaps in students' knowledge from lower grades. Furthermore, Kon Plong District is facing difficulties in recruitment, with a shortage of 53 teachers at all levels. Many schools have mostly contract teachers, leading to numerous shortcomings in teaching and learning.

To improve the situation, the Kon Plông District Department of Education and Training has directed Pờ Ê Primary School to strengthen the categorization of students within the classroom to organize differentiated instruction according to student groups in each lesson. At the same time, they are directly guiding and supervising teachers in their classroom teaching and lesson planning.

“In parallel, teachers also need to be proactive and make efforts to reinforce the knowledge of weak students. The school's management board needs to clearly assign students to the Principal and Vice-Principal to develop tutoring plans for them; increase teaching to two sessions per day and redirect these weak students to the afternoon… When efforts are made to do a good job, but the students still do not meet the requirements, their abilities must be reviewed and reassessed to avoid the ‘achievement-oriented’ mentality,” Mr. Cuong emphasized.

Mr. Pham Van Thang, Vice Chairman of the Kon Plong District People's Committee, stated: "The main responsibility for the situation where 4th and 5th grade students are still slow at reading and writing lies with the school's management board. Regarding this issue, the district has directed further efforts to improve the quality of teaching and learning. Specifically, we will check the number of teachers and how lesson assignments are distributed to find concrete solutions... It is especially important to strengthen Vietnamese language preparation for preschool children and organize educational activities to enhance their Vietnamese language skills before entering first grade."

According to Mr. Thang, the most important factor in improving the quality of teaching and learning lies in the responsibility of the teachers. Why is it that some classes have students who read very fluently, while many others have very low reading quality? Therefore, it is necessary to review the performance of contract teachers; if the quality is not good, their contracts should be terminated. As for tenured teachers, they need to focus on improving the quality of teaching and learning.

As reported by the Journalists and Public Opinion Newspaper, dozens of 4th and 5th grade students at Pờ Ê Primary School in Kon Plông district (Kon Tum province) are slow to read and write, with some even having to spell out words or mispronouncing letters. The reasons include frequent absences, failure to keep up with the curriculum, and the fact that most teachers are contract workers who are frequently rotated.

Text and photos: Tran Hien

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