Vietnam Urged to Remove Monopoly in Compiling Textbooks

Vietnam needs to remove the monopoly in compiling textbooks to ensure better educational quality and fair participation of other sectors in the education field, said a famous scholar. The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) must not take part in producing books so the work would be better done by publishing houses and schools, Prof. Nguyen Minh Thuyet, former deputy head of the National Assembly’s Committee for Culture, Education, Youth and Children, told the newswire Vnexpress.net. The MOET should focus on building education development strategies, issuing legal documents and solving violations but not doing for experts, Mr. Thuyet said. Vietnam uses sets of textbooks published by the MOET-run Education Publishing house for education programs from the 1st to 12th grade since 2000 in accordance to a decision by the National Assembly, the country’s highest legislative body. The situation is unlike with other countries, the professor said. He noted that the government should allow individuals and organizations to compile the textbooks to make full use of knowledge from different circles of life while the state does not need to spend a large amount of money to compile compulsory sets of textbooks. Keeping monopoly in creating education programs is an effective way to maintain the propaganda mission which the single party-ruled country has been targeting to, Hanoi-based observers said. As a way to escape from propagandist and theoretical education programs, more people send their children to study abroad over the past years. (Vnexpress.net Sept 24)