Vietnam will officially establish the National Committee on Education and Training Reform in March as part of its efforts to further improve the quality of the sector. The committee led by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will work as an advising group for the government in the reform. The establishment of the committee was one of the main discussions at the second meeting of the National Council on Education and Human Resources Development on Feb 24. The others were plans to renew school curriculum and textbooks beyond 2015. PM Dung asked the textbook compiling agency to work with the National Assembly Committees to solve big problems in finalizing the new books. Participants agreed that the country should soon take measures to improve education management capacity, while boosting the retraining of teachers to improve their skills. They also suggested that the country should think of the possibility of having more than one set of textbooks for every grade and encouraging teachers and educators to write textbooks to create a competitiveness to have best textbooks for generations. The textbooks should cover wider contents of knowledge so that they can be used for 10-15 years instead of 2-3 years as currently to reduce financial burdens on parents while it can be used by excellent students as a reference, they noted. Vietnam has spent trillions of dong on reforming its education for years. However, the work has proved to be not very effective, said educators, proposing the country learn from other countries’ experience in drafting textbooks to promote life-long learning and improve the national education system. (Ha Noi Moi – New Hanoi Feb 26 p1, Saigon Giai Phong – Saigon Liberation Feb 26 p1, Tien Phong – Pioneer Feb 26 p4, Tin Tuc – News Feb 26 p2)
