Education and Training sector

PLANTING PEOPLE IN THE NEW CENTURY

Education is one of the basic contents of the ideological and cultural revolution. It is also the motive force to advance to the targets of “wealthy people, prosperous country and an equal, democratic and civilized society." To date, educational and training cause has played an important role in improving the people's intellectual standards, training human resource and nurturing talents for the country. The Communist Party of Vietnam always considers education and training, together with science and technology, are essential factors for the socia/1st construction in Vietnam. Education is the country's foremost strategy.

For the recent years. thanks to the great assistance of the Party and the State, and with its efforts, Binh Thuan Province's education sector has gained many significant achievements, contributing to the educational and training renovation as well as socio-economic development in the province. In the orientations for socio-economic development in 2003, education and training is considered one of the top-priority aspects of the province.

In comparison with the previous school years, Binh Thuan's educational and training cause has promoted. The educational network has been broadened. Many training forms have been diversified. Educational branches and echelons have been restructured properly, meeting the increasing demands of the local people. All educational branches have strongly developed both in quality and quantity. The development level and completeness between different educational branches and echelons have been balanced within the province. A complete educational system has been formed, including nursery, primary, high to professional education.

In preschool education, the enrollment of kindergartens and of nursery schools has increased by 0.4 percent and 4.6 percent respectively. This is an Important educational echelon because it helps to liberate mothers and their labor forces. At the same time, it lays foundations for a solid primary generalization. Recognizing this importance, Binh Thuân's Service of Education and Training has created good conditions for nursery educational echelon to maintain and develop private schools, people-founded schools, and family children groups in conformity with professional standards, the existing legal regulations on the establishment of schools and classes, socio-economic conditions and demands of each localities. The enrollment of non-state-run kindergartens accounts for 57.7 percent of the total number, and 14.5 percent in nursery schools, increasing by 1.6 and 0.5 percent respectively in comparison with the last year.

The compulsory education is the “spine" of the educational system. Thus, its development is promoted. The scale of schools and c/asses has been increasing enlarged, meeting the pupil's studying demands (see the blow Table).

In secondary level, because the students have been effectively mobilized to go to schools to serve the generalization of junior secondary education and thanks to people's and students' correct aware- ness of studying, the number of schools, classes and pupils have been increased both at junior and senior levels. At the senior level, semi-public and people- founded schools have been strengthened while the B-grade classes are maintained in public schools. The non-public students at junior and senior secondary levels accounts for 2.85 percent and 39.71 percent of the total numbers of the same levels respectively. Compared to the last school year, the number of non-public junior secondary students reduces by 2.79 percent. The cause is that the sector has mobilized the majority of the primary graduates into the public sixth grades in order to facilitate the generalization of junior secondary education. This is a great effort made by all educational management agencies despite the province's shortage of material foundations and low-quality enrollment.

Many collages and vocational schools have diversified their training forms. Beside regular training in line with the State's index, the province's Teacher Training College has closely cooperated with the Service of Education and Training to organize many classes to foster and standardize nursery and primary teachers, upgrade primary teachers from the secondary level 9+3 to the tertiary  level 12+3. The Health High School has opened some in-service classes for pharmacists and medical personnel for villages and hamlets in some districts and communes. The Service of Education and Training has cooperated with Ho Chi Minh City Teacher Training University to organize crash courses for nursery, primary and junior secondary teachers. At the same time, teachers in charge of music, painting and sports have been upgraded at Đong Nai Teacher Training Collage. At present, 530 students are studying at the secondary level of the Teacher Training Collage. 406 students at the tertiary level. The Health High School has over 700 students.

The province's and districts' Boarding High Schools for ethnic minorities have been further strengthened, stabilized and equipped in order to effective/y serve the teaching-studying demands of the students from various ethnic minorities. The whole province has about 1,400 students from ethnic minorities studying at various schools, including over 920 junior secondary pupils.

The development of educational cause in the communes of ethnic minorities plays an important role, contributing to improve people's awareness, introduce “cultural lights" to all villages and hamlets, and rea/1ze the "studying socialization." Through proactive measures such as the movement "the entire people take children to schools, supervising and directing the extra education to raise the percentage of successful students, the number of students mobilized to go to schools is increasing. In the school year 2002-2003, the number of pupils from nursery to junior secondary levels in e/even communes of ethnic minorities and four communes of the Cham people has significantly increased.

Nursery education:

50 classes - 1.401 pupils

Primary education:

261 classes - 7,616 pupils

Junior secondary education:

33 classes - 1,193 pupils

In parallel with investment into the educational development, the appointment and assignment of teachers to teach in communes of ethnic minorities and the Cham ethnicity have been enhanced. At Present, the total number of teachers who directly engage in teaching is 365 people. The supplemental teachers are mainly local people who have been retrained. Thus, most of communes have reached the percentage of teachers stipulated by the Ministry of Education and Training for all training echelons. Binh Thuan's Service of Education and Training has cooperated with the Department of Ethnic Minorities and Mountainous Areas administered by the province's Politics School to train cadres from different ethnic minorities.

The achievements of Binh Thuan's education and training sector not on/y contribute to enlarging the educational scale and network but a/so mark the deep changes in improving the training quality and building the man of "Benevolence- Intelligence-bravery."

Considering as a science and art, the work to take care and feed children in nursery establishments has been always heightened in order to improve children's physical strength and provide them with good conditions to study. The sector has paid attention to the teachings of President Ho Chi Minh "Growing young plants well is to facilitate their development. Teaching children carefully is to turn them into good citizens. The first and foremost is to teach children moral." Education of morality, nutrition and traffic safety have been included in some subjects and activities in order to help children absorb know/edge effectively.

A significant change in universal education is to renovate teaching methods and strengthen teaching activities at schools. Thus, educational quality has been considerably improved. The number of excellent and good pupils at primary level (2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th forms) reaches 58.2 percent. The percentage of primary graduates is 99.8 percent. The number of excellent and good students at junior and senior secondary levels increases by 1.2 percent and 0.5 percent respectively. The graduation rate is quite high. The training efficiency reaches 66.8 percent and 72.1 percent at Junior and senior secondary levels respectively.

Binh Thuan's education has still maintained the effective primary education generalization. The whole province has 111 among 115 communes/ wards/ tows reaching the national standards. The Service of Education and Training has implemented the primary educational generalization of age to every localities within the province. To August 2003, 19,369 out of 28,766 (67.3 percent) of 11-year-old children graduated from primary schools, increasing by 8.2 percent in comparison with the previous school-year. The movement the Day to Take Children to School" is further promoted. A great number of studying-aged children have been mobilized to go to schools. In the school year 2002-2003, the number of nursery children increased by 6.1 percent, of 6-yeal-old children to attend first grades by 3.2 percent. The generalization of junior secondary education has actively changed. Up to August 2003, the province has 165 junior secondary classes with 3,440 students. Six communes and wards have completed the genera/1zation of Junior secondary education.

The noteworthy in this school year is the program of “practicing the Vietnamese language" for the ethnic minority pupils who can speak no or little the official language (Vietnamese). This program has helped first-form pupils learn with much better results in comparison with the previous years.

At the high educational level, the movement to nurture excellent students as well as competition-festivals for eminent teachers have been regularly organized at many schools. The emulation movements to obtain the honor titles “excellent teacher". "emulative fighter", “effective laboring team" and "excellent schools" at all levels have been promoted by the Bureau of Education. These keynote emulative movements have encouraged teachers and students to strive best in their work.

Beside the nationwide and provincial contests for excellent and talented twelfth-form pupils. Binh Thuan's education sector has regularly organized many annual examinations lo select excellent students, especially those who can do mathematics with pocket calculators Casio. In the third-time examinations for excellent pupils at the seventh, eighth, ninth. eleventh and twelfth forms, six education bureaus and six junior secondary schools won 45 prizes. Among the winners, those with great achievements include Phan Thiet Education Bureau (7 prizes), Đuc Linh Education Bureau (7 Prizes) and Ham Tan Education Bureau (5 prizes). The province's special schools have taken part in Olympic Prizes for the southern provinces, in which Tran Hung Đạo Special Junior Secondary School won 28 medals, including two golden, 14 silver and 12 bronze ones.

The emulation movement "Two Good Aspects" is further enhanced, creating a comprehensive effect on the sector's activities and contributing to the fulfillment of tasks in the school year 2002-2003. Many units have been awarded with the emulative flags by the people's Committee, including Tuoi Tho Nursery School, Tuyen Quang Primary School (in Phan Thiet City), Ham Đuc junior Secondary School (Ham Thuan Bac District). The Province's Service of Education and Training has commended four good units and 62 good-laboring teams.

Beside the development of the regular educational system, the permanent training has considerably met the people's demands of studying foreign languages, informatics and other knowledge, with a total number of 279 trainees (junior secondary level) and 2,100 ones (senior secondary level). The anti-illiteracy work has been promoted. Up to now, 114 out of 115 (or 99.1 percent) communes, ward and towns in the province have reached anti-illiteracy standards.

The achievements of Binh Thuan's education sector has been resulted from great efforts by pupils, students and the contingent of teachers. The country's industrialization and modernization requires a human resources of high intelligence. The development of information technology has encouraged teachers to update their knowledge regularly and continuously from all sources at every time and by all means. Thus, the Service of Education and Training has further boosted the training and nurturing work to improve teachers' qualifications in order to standardize their level and meet the new demands of educational work. Nowadays, the province has 5,327 teachers with a teacher/ class ratio of 1.11 at primary level, 2.549 and 1.38 at junior secondary level, 1,039 and 1.6 at senior secondary level. The percentage of standardized nursery teachers reaches 86.74, primary teachers 88.7 percent and junior secondary teachers 96.8 percent. To raise teachers' qualifications, educational management entities and schools have actively suggested local Party committees to found Party cells at training establishments, increase Party members who are teachers and lecturers. By 2003, the entire sector has 1,605 Party members including 1,031 teachers.

A significant achievement of Binh Thuan,s education sector is the building of material foundation and schooling devices. The whole province has 5,3/0 classrooms with 18.960 seats. In the school year 2002-2003, Binh Thuan has built 334 classrooms and repaired 106 ones. All senior secondary schools have been repaired or rebuilt. Education is of the cause of the whole-people, by people and for people. It is necessary to rely on the people to develop education, build training establishments and purchase schooling equipment and devices. Thus, some schools have mobilized capitals from business and production entities, and even the people, to upgrade their facilities, creating a better educational and training environment. The people has contributed VNI) 25.443 million through school fees, construction fees and others. This wholehearted contribution shows the people's attention and interest in educational development.

Bình Thuân's educational and training achievements in the last year are resulted from the whole sector's great efforts to raise people's intellectual standards, nurture talents and train human resource. However, there are also some challenges. Unbalanced socio-economic development among various localities has brought about differentiation in educational development scale and quality. A comprehensive education has not been promoted in depth. The materials, equipment and devices for teaching and studying have been provided insignificantly. There remains a big shortage of teachers, especially at the secondary level. These are the difficulties which Binh Thuan's education sector needs to overcome.

At present, scientific and techno- logical revolution and economic internationalization in the world have created more good opportunities for development. At the same time, these are also big challenges for many countries, especially such underdeveloped ones like Vietnam. In such a context. to promote industrialization and modernization, Vietnam should rapidly master and apply scientific and technological advances. This work requires a high intellectual standard, a well-trained human resource and a powerful scientific and technological potential.

Facing this heavy task, Binh Thuan's education sector has set up some major targets in the new school years in order to bring about a comprehensive change in educational development.

The first and foremost target is to focus on raising educational quality at all training levels; improve teaching quality in the first and sixth forms; effectively put the teaching and studying curricula for the second and seventh forms into reality; develop nursery education and enlarge the scale of junior secondary education; maintain the primary education universalization; and promote the junior secondary education generalization. The Service of Education and Training should pay more attention to educational development in the residential areas of ethnic minorities as well as training teachers and cadres from these ethnic groups. It is necessary to promote educational socialization, realize social equality m education and found studying communities.

With their importance, the contingent of teachers will be further strengthened. The work of standardize and nurture teachers will be promoted in order to serve the cause of educational comprehensive renovation and qua/1ty improvement.

Schooling devices and facilities always play an important role m raising teaching and studying quality. Thus, the Service of Education and Training has designed some plans to invest in the infrastructure construction of schools in the orientations of concretization, standardization and modernization. It is necessary to build special classrooms, laboratories and libraries equipped with a full of textbooks, teaching tools and devices. The Service will also concretized schools and build a Junior secondary school in every commune/ ward. Besides, the schooling management and environment are also promoted. All educational activities must follow the existing regulations on curricula, contents, quality, efficiency, examination, etc.

Education sector of Binh Thuan in particular and of Vietnam in general, is entering the new century under the orientations of socialization, modernization. standardization, diversification and democraticization. The achievements of the sector have created great resources, laying foundation for the implementation of President Ho Chi Minh's desires "to take all people to school and make the Vietnamese an intelligent nation" - who, together with other developed countries, can proudly advance in the new millennium.

NGUYEN HUONG