Le Quy Don Secondary School in district 3, HCMC, is one of a few schools which has organized STEM education in curricular teaching program. STEM lessons have been integrated into physics, chemistry and biology teaching hours.

Most recently, the school kicked off a project on automatic management greenhouse, planning to put into teaching in the time to come.

This is a flexible teaching method. Without space limitation, it gives students new experiences, thus awakening students’ passion for learning. However, the project will need huge investment, with VND40 million for one VR (virtual reality) glass and learning software.

A teacher from Le Quy Don School said STEM-oriented teaching in general school can be implemented through two ways – teaching STEM in topics, or integrating STEM into lessons.

With the former method, students will be equipped with science & technology knowledge and they will have to implement topics set by teachers.

With the latter, students will have practical activities which make it easier to understand and remember lessons.

When giving lesson about melting and freezing, for example, teachers will ask students to make wax, which would allow students see the process of melting and freezing. Students will also learn about casting technology, molding and the skill of getting product off the molds.

After more than one year of putting the STEM lab into operation, students have created  many things such as telescope, rainwater and tap water filtering machine.

Headmaster of Le Quy Don Secondary School Pham Dang Khoa said that with new teaching methods, the students’ quality has been upgraded significantly. 

In Vietnam, STEM education has been applied at many extracurricular education centers for several years. In 2015, DTT Educspec launched STEM academy chain to satisfy the students having passion for STEM at hocvienstem.com. Another well known address is Kham Pha (discovery) academy.

Stem.vn, the social network specializing in STEM education made its debut together with the Vietnam’s Digital Vietnamese knowledge system’ on January 1, 2018. The social network was built to serve the members of the STEM community who are interested in STEM education in Vietnam.

However, the number of general schools in Vietnam which have deployed STEM education remains modest. 

FPT Primary School became the first primary school in Vietnam which put STEM education into curricular teaching program, commencing from the 2017-2018 academic year.

The authors of the new general education program have said that STEM education will be an important part of the new program, saying that enhancing STEM education is a must in the context of the 4.0 industry revolution.

RELATED NEWS

STEM training booms but not in schools

STEM education can succeed at schools with poor conditions