If the Ministry of Education and Training compiles only one set of textbooks, anti-monopoly will fail.

In the Official Dispatch dated August 16, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh requested the Ministry of Education and Training to urgently find solutions to overcome the limitations and shortcomings pointed out by the National Assembly Standing Committee's Supervisory Delegation in implementing the general education program and new textbooks, including preparing the content of a set of State textbooks.

Antitrust will fail

Dr. Nguyen Hong Quang, Hanoi National University of Education, said that after nearly four years of implementation, the policy of socializing textbook compilation according to Resolution 88 of the National Assembly has had positive results. The whole country has 6 publishing houses and 3 organizations qualified to participate in textbook compilation, contributing to saving the state budget.

Experts disagree with the Ministry of Education and Training compiling a set of textbooks. (Illustration photo)

"If at this time the Ministry of Education and Training compiles another set of textbooks, it will limit socialization, cause unequal competition and be costly for society, and especially will cause the anti-monopoly policy to fail," said Mr. Quang.

The socialization of textbook compilation and publication has contributed to saving the state budget, ensuring competitiveness, aiming at diversifying learning materials to serve the learning and teaching needs of students and teachers. Now, textbooks are no longer "laws", they are the only ones.

Instead of the Ministry of Education and Training using the budget to compile another set of books, it should continue to socialize the compilation of textbooks according to the policy approved by the National Assembly in Resolution No. 122.

This expert also analyzed that the Ministry of Education and Training is a state management agency in the field of education and training, and does not have functional departments to carry out the stages of publishing textbooks. If the Ministry of Education and Training itself produces another set of textbooks, it must form corresponding departments like a publishing house. This leads to a waste of resources (authors, editors, artists, equipment in the field of publishing), and does not promote the available resources at the Vietnam Education Publishing House.

Most importantly, the textbook replacement has almost reached the end of its journey, so if there is another set of textbooks from the Ministry of Education and Training at this time, it could be a huge mid-term policy adjustment. This causes a waste of resources, effort, intelligence and can be said to go against the socialization policy according to the National Assembly's Resolutions, this person stated his opinion.

Mr. Do Ngoc Thong, Editor of the new general education program for Literature, also commented that in the current context, asking the Ministry of Education and Training to continue compiling a set of textbooks is completely unnecessary, unfeasible, and further complicates the situation. He pointed out 5 reasons.

Firstly, the textbooks are fully available to implement the 2018 General Education program on schedule.

Second, Resolution 122 of the National Assembly itself (issued after Resolution 88) requested that the book series no longer be compiled using the State budget.

Third, the compilation of textbooks in the direction of socialization has been successfully implemented according to Resolution 88, not costing the State budget, but promoting the intelligence and resources of society.

Fourth, if the Ministry of Education and Training compiles its own textbooks, it will have to start from scratch, starting from grade 1. If it is done for all levels, it will take at least 5 more years to complete. In reality, there are already enough textbooks for all levels. The "Ministry's" textbooks were published when schools had been teaching other textbooks for 5-7 years. Are they ready to change now? If they change, will teachers have to go through training again and re-write lesson plans?

Fifth, it is not possible to simply choose one set of books from existing sets to make it the Ministry's book, because each set of books has certain advantages and limitations and it is impossible to judge which set is better than the other.

"Would the Ministry of Education and Training dare to let teachers nationwide vote directly to choose a set of books from each subject? Each subject has 12 grades, is there any set that has books for all 12 years that have advantages over other sets of books?", he said.

Furthermore, if this year we choose books in series A but in the next grade books in series B are better, should we continue to choose books in series A? If we choose each book and combine a few lessons, it will be even more inappropriate because each book has a very different pedagogical ideology and structure even though they share the same curriculum. Moreover, the issue of copyright of the books will be very complicated..., Mr. Do Ngoc Thong added.

In the 2023-2024 school year, grades 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, and 11 will be taught according to the new curriculum and textbooks selected from many different publishers.

Waste of budget

Speaking to the press, Ms. Nguyen Thi Ha - Member of the National Assembly's Committee on Culture and Education expressed her opinion that there should not be another set of textbooks compiled by the Ministry of Education and Training at this time. Because asking the Ministry of Education and Training to compile a set of textbooks with State funds is very costly.

In addition, the textbook replacement has now almost reached its end. Having a set of textbooks at this time may be a very big policy adjustment, requiring a lot of time and resources. Meanwhile, educational reform cannot give us more time to stagnate or slow down.

And above all, the Ministry of Education and Training will certainly have difficulty in selecting editors when compiling another set of textbooks. Because currently, most of the "talents" in education have participated in compiling the current sets of educational textbooks.

Regarding the concern that the Ministry of Education and Training should select books from the current textbook sets to create a common set of textbooks for use nationwide, Ms. Ha said that this is also inappropriate because each set of books has its own advantages and disadvantages. The evaluation of the set of books for use depends on the needs and desires of each locality.

In particular, this can create inequality in the choice of books by localities, potentially leading to a return to the "monopoly" of textbooks as before.

At the supervision session on this content on August 14, Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son also proposed to remove the above proposal. According to the Minister, the state controls and supervises the national unified program. That is the core content of education, the law, and textbooks are learning materials and tools to support teachers in conveying the program and implementing subject requirements.
"The program is unique and unified; the learning materials are diverse and flexible. So is there a need for a set of textbooks, a set of state learning materials?" , Minister Son asked.
According to Mr. Son, this is different from the content of Resolution 122 of 2020. The Ministry only organizes the compilation of books when there is no organization or individual to compile them. In fact, all subjects have books compiled by groups and individuals.
The Ministry's compilation of another set of books not only greatly affects the socialization policy but can also impact the spirit of innovation that the whole industry is aiming for.

Ha Cuong

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