Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has submitted to the National Assembly (NA), the country’s highest legislative body, a plan to compile textbooks until 2021 with a cost of VND779 billion ($37 million). The money, which will include VND505 billion from the state budget and the remaining from localities’ budget, would be used to write textbooks, e-books and foster compilers, Minister Pham Vu Luan said at the opening session of the NA’s 8th plenary meeting on Oct 20. The plan has been appraised by the Ministry of Finance. Earlier, MOET has submitted to the NA a project costing roughly VND34.3 trillion ($1.64 billion) to improve textbooks and curriculum by 2023. The project has caught strong opposition from lawmakers on the reason that it is too costly. Prof. Van Nhu Cuong said that it requires only one thousandth of the proposed cost to compile textbooks from the 1st to 12th classes. Prof. Nguyen Minh Thuyet, former deputy head of the NA’s Committee for Culture, Education, Youth and Children Vietnam, said that Vietnam needs to remove the monopoly in compiling textbooks to ensure better educational quality and fair participation of other sectors in the education. 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. (Sai Gon Giai Phong – Saigon Liberation Oct 22 p3)
