VietNamNet Bridge – Serious mistakes have been found recently in a lot of reference books for students, especially the ones for pre-school children, which has raised the indignation from the public. How can teachers teach their students if they themselves don’t have good basic knowledge?

Market of reference books for pre-school children in chaos

Prof. Nguyen Minh Thuyet, former Deputy Chair of the National Assembly’s Committee for Culture, Education, the Youth and Children, said the reference book market is now so chaotic. Serious mistakes have been existing in a lot of publications, including spelling mistakes.

Meanwhile, the discoverers of the mistakes were not the watchdog agencies, which simply say the current situation goes beyond their control capability. It was the Vietnamese parents, who fear that their children would receive wrong knowledge, have discovered the mistakes.

The Dan Tri Publishing House marketed a book with the image of Chinese flag. The University of Education’s Publishing House tried to familiarize children with the Chinese flag. And most recently, the HCM City General Publishing House released the books “Chinese for children” which contained the map with the “nine-dashed line”, or the “cow tongue” line.

Most recently, a student read on her book that Ly Thuong Kiet commanded the army and defeated the Han army on the Bach Dang River in 938 and then Ly Thuong Kiet became the King. Meanwhile, the commander of the army was Ngo Quyen, not Ly Thuong Kiet, while Ly Thuong Kiet was not a King.

An educator commented--while even the authors of the history books, who can be the teachers of the students and lack basic history knowledge--cannot expect Vietnamese students have deep knowledge about the Vietnamese history. This explains why hundreds of zero marks in history were given to the examinees attending the university entrance exams every year.

“The authors and the publishing houses were too careless. They just run after profits. They have to be told that the wrong knowledge they provide may spoil the next Vietnamese generations,” the educator said.

“It is the watchdog agency, not parents, students or newspapers, which must take the responsibility to discover the mistakes,” he added.

Who to blame?

Just within several days, serious mistakes were found in five books designed for children. The noteworthy thing is that none of the involved parties, authors, editors, publishing houses, partners and the Publication Department discovered the mistakes.

Under the current regulations, the Ministry of Education and Training compile textbooks which are officially used by teachers and students at general schools.

As for reference books, headmasters of general schools assign their staff to consider the contents of the books used at their schools. If they discover problems in the books, they need to warn students against the problems, or inform the watchdog agencies if they discover serious mistakes.

Education management agencies and general schools must not force students to buy reference books.

However, in fact, reference books still have been penetrating easily into general schools without any inspection.

Professor Thuyet believes that as a state management agency, MOET has to take responsibility for the reference books used at schools. All kinds of reference books must go through an MOET’s examination board before entering general schools.

“Any education products must be examined by the MOET before they are provided to students. If students read unverified books, this is just like having the medicine which is not allowed to be put into circulation,” Thuyet said.

Dat Viet