VietNamNet Bridge – The high schools in Hanoi have reported the record low in the number of students registering to attend the history final exam. This has raised the worry that history would be disregarded at general schools.

No student of the Luong The Vinh High School would attend the history final exam, while history is the optional exam subject for only 9-33 students of the Cau Giay, Tran Nhan Tong and Vietnam-Germany High Schools. Each of the Ho Tung Mau and Einstein High Schools has one student to attend the exam.

The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has decided that from the 2014 academic year, high schools would have four exam subjects for the finals instead of six. Of the four, two – math and literature – are compulsory exam subjects, while the other optional subjects could be one of the six subjects - history, geography, physics, chemistry, biology and English.

According to Nguyen Quoc Binh, Headmaster of the Vietnam-Germany High School, 62 percent of the 716 students of the school registered to attend English exam, 54 percent physics, 45 percent chemistry, 20 percent geography, 6.6 percent biology, while only 4.6 percent have decided to choose history for the finals.

“It is obvious that students would opt for the subjects they like or the subjects they are good at,” he commented. “I am afraid that the multi-sided education plan, which aims to provide students with comprehensive knowledge, may fail completely”.

Binh has warned that in the future, students may only cram the subjects likely to be asked, while they would “ignore” other subjects which help bring comprehensive and useful knowledge to them.

He thinks that it would be better to integrate many subjects into one exam. For example, the exam questions should be designed in a way that the answers can show the comprehensive knowledge of students.

The headmaster of the Cau Giay High School Nguyen Duc Hai said it is understandable why students do not choose history or biology for finals.

“Most of them plan to attend the A, A1 and D-group university entrance exams, which means that they would have math, physics, chemistry, literature and foreign languages as the exam subjects. Therefore, they would also choose the exams for the high school finals,” he said.

While urban students say “no” to history, they tend to “love” English. 56 percent of Luong The Vinh School would attend the English exam. This is explained by the fact that urban students attach much importance to learning English. Foreign language skills are believed to be the key to success for the students’ future lives. Therefore, a lot of Hanoi’s students began learning English in the childhood.

Commenting about the fact that students “refuse” history, Associate Prof Van Nhu Cuong said this is foreseeable.

“The Ministry of Education and Training did not anticipate the serious consequences to be caused by its decision to allow students to choose exam subjects,” Cuong said.

“As far as I know, the students of other schools also do not “like” history,” Cuong added.

Dr. Ha Minh Hong from the HCM City University of Social Sciences and Humanity has warned that history would be a subject to be disregarded at school, and that Vietnamese education would produce the Vietnamese students illiterate in Vietnamese history.

Dat Viet