VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnamese university students complain that they have too many subjects at school, including those not useful for their future jobs.

 

Nguyen Hoang Tan, an engineer, wrote on Facebook that he was happy as the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) plans to cut the time for university training, though he finished university eight years ago.

“This is a correct decision. Vietnamese students have to spend too much time on studying at school, while they should spend the time on working and learn from their work,” he said.

Tan, who is now a coder at an IT firm, affirmed it would be feasible to shorten the time for university training.

“We had too many subjects and many of them were really unnecessary in my current jobs,” he recalled. 

Vietnamese university students complain that they have too many subjects at school, including those not useful for their future jobs.

“We had to spend too much time on the subjects and later realized that they were nonsensical,” he said.

Nguyen Van Nha, former head of the training division of the Hanoi National University, under the current curriculum, students of all polytechnic schools have common subjects on politics, ideology, foreign languages and general math in about 30 credits in total. 

It takes students one year on average to fulfill the 30 credits. This means that students have only three years to study the subjects in their major and prepare for the graduation. 

In some European countries, students only have three years at university. Thevofficial curriculum designed for schools does not include subjects on ideology, politics and foreign languages. 

Students can learn foreign languages anywhere they want, and they only have to show certificates on meeting foreign language skills to be able to finish schools.

This could be the way for Vietnam to follow, according to Nha. When the time for university training is cut from four to six years currently to three to four years, schools will have to cut the time for some subjects and focus on classes in their majors. 

Nha said there was no need to worry if Vietnamese students don’t study ideology subjects. 

“All of us naturally have love for the Vietnamese fatherland,” he said.

When asked why Vietnamese students’ capability remains weak, even though students ahave four years at universities like the students in the majority of developed countries, Nha said the problem was the curriculum. 

US students, for example, have to work hard during the four-year study They have specific tasks for every year at school. Students when finishing the fourth year have to present their theses and complete research works of their own.


GDVN