Almost every textbook series has been "picked out" by public opinion. And then, corrections and revisions... take place. However, behind the corrections and even recalls of textbooks due to serious errors like the textbooks of the Vietnam Education Publishing House last year, unfortunately, there are subsequent textbooks that have... errors on top of errors, "errors" on top of "errors".
Error on error?
It is possible to point out many errors in the 2 Vietnamese textbooks 4 of the Education Publishing House. For example, teaching students to write reports according to the wrong model, the content is similar to the minutes, not a report, in terms of format, there is no national emblem; the person writing the report is the secretary, not the chairman of the meeting.
The Vietnamese textbook for grade 4, the Connection set, also has some mistakes that should not have happened. For example, the pronunciation of foreign names is often wrong. For example, Ludwig van Beethoven is pronounced as Lút-vích-van Bêt-tô-ven. Van is a filler word, it should be separated.
Thocadéro (French) is transcribed as Thô-ca-đê-rô. In French, h is a silent letter, so it should be transcribed as Tô-ca-đê-rô to be correct.
It is worth mentioning that even writing the original foreign names in textbooks is wrong:
- The original phonetic form of Tin-tin's name is Tylyl, but the book writes: Tintin. If written like that, it should be read as Tanh-tanh.
- The original phonetic name Mi-tin is Mytyl, but the book writes: Mitin. If written like that, it should be read as Mi-tanh.
The author of the book probably did not have the work Con chim Xanh (by the Education Publishing House itself) but only took it from the old textbook and then restored it to its original form according to his own imagination, so it was wrong. If it is wrong, what is the meaning of the foreign name lookup table?
Textbooks must be the standard of knowledge, at the top of the criteria. However, to continuously have such unnecessary "grains of sand" in knowledge, not only shows the level of the compiler, but also shows a lack of responsibility towards students and teachers.
Recently, the MC teacher ( Bac Kan ) was very surprised to see that the textbook wrote that Kim Dong died on February 15, 1943, more than a year before the establishment of the Vietnam Propaganda Liberation Army of Vo Nguyen Giap (December 22, 1944). So at that time, which army did Kim Dong work as a liaison for? Even when Vo Nguyen Giap's army was established, that army was not yet called "troops". The word "troops" only entered our country after the Border Victory (1950). The word "liaison" appeared during the resistance war against the US, about 20 years after Kim Dong died.
We are starting to implement History as an elective subject. That affirms the significance and position of History ineducating patriotism and love for the nation for the young generation. That starts from the first pages of textbooks. Therefore, more than ever, historical knowledge must be the most accurate.
We should not let mistakes in textbook knowledge continue to recur.
Early last December, teachers discovered that in the same book series Connecting knowledge with life, the final exercises of Chapter 1 in Math Textbook Grade 6 (Volume 1) at the printing houses of Ca Mau , Soc Trang, and Quang Nam had different content.
Or the same group writes History and Geography textbooks but the knowledge for grades 6 and 7 are completely opposite.
Specifically, the History and Geography Textbook 6 states: "The Central and Southern regions are the Deccan plateau with dense forests and rugged rocky mountains; only the extreme South and along the two coasts are small, narrow plains, which are relatively favorable places to live, with a dense population."
But the History and Geography textbook for grade 7 provides knowledge that the Deccan plateau is in the Southwest region.
| In a written response to National Assembly deputies in January 2022, Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son said that the Vietnam Education Publishing House had to recall 110,000 textbooks and simultaneously destroy and reprint 38,000 Natural Science 6 books of the Connecting Knowledge with Life book series and a number of other books because of errors that affected the reception of standard knowledge in these books. |
These are just a few small examples related to the "grains of sand" in textbooks of the Vietnam Education Publishing House. However, in the face of these serious errors, up to now, the Vietnam Education Publishing House has not had any feedback, corrections or any remedial actions.
Last year, public opinion was indignant and reacted with many opinions, the most notable of which was the opinion of teacher Mai Van Tuc (Physics teacher, High School for the Gifted in Natural Sciences, Hanoi National University and many teachers across the country) who discovered the Natural Sciences 6 textbook (part of the book series Connecting Knowledge with Life compiled and published by the Vietnam Education Publishing House). The book was compiled by a group of 12 authors, with Mr. Vu Van Hung as Editor-in-Chief, Vietnam Education Publishing House in 2021.
After pointing out a series of errors in the book, Mr. Tuc pointed out that one lesson had nearly twenty errors. He was disappointed by the serious knowledge discrepancies in this book. Especially when conducting experiments for students according to the book's instructions: "Finally, what confirms that when conducting the experiment, the wheelchair is moving horizontally? Lack of scientific basis. So in just one lesson, there were up to 16 "mistakes".
Or like in lesson 54 - Solar System, instructing students to make a tool to observe sunspots on the sun, Mr. Tuc said: "Drawings and instructions do not match, causing teachers and students to make mistakes that can cause very dangerous damage to the eyes, even blindness. It is impossible to connect knowledge with life like this."
Assessing these errors, Mr. Hoang Ngoc Vinh, former Director of the Department of Vocational Education, Ministry of Education and Training, said that there is a shortage of competent compilers. The 2018 General Education Program itself has not been tested properly. It is very possible that the textbooks have not been tested seriously on a large scale to evaluate and adjust, leading to many errors. In particular, the coordination between the development of educational programs and book writers, publishing houses and the evaluation and measurement system is "unsteady".
When will textbooks be free of “errors”? That depends on the Textbook Appraisal Council, and on the responsibility and capacity of the team of textbook compilers.
Nhat Chi Mai
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