VietNamNet Bridge - “Vietnam is still in the 1.0 education development period. The 4.0 digital era in education is still on paper,” Pham Do Nhat Tien, PhD, former assistant to Minister of Education and Training, has said.

The 4.0 education is still on paper

Tien said there are four stages of education development corresponding to the four stages of industrial development. 

The 1.0 education aims to prepare the labor force for industrial production and the 2.0 stage shifts from one-way education shifts to interactive learning. With 3.0, people study all their lives to keep up to date with the latest knowledge and information.

The world is now entering the 4.0 stage: lifelong and personalized education which prepares people for innovation and creativity.

Over the last 30 years, Vietnam has been pursuing this step by step by improving the skills of the labor force. But according to Tien, Vietnam’s education is at the 1.0 stage and closely approaching the 2.0 level.

Students enter university, study, take exams, and finish schools in the so-called labor production line. Education experts are now urging student-centered education, but implementation of new teaching methods faces problems.

A World Bank (WB) study pointed out that Vietnam’s biggest problem in training a high-quality labor force lies in the lack of connections between training establishments and recruiting agencies, businesses, research institutes and schools that prepare students for university, and connections among training establishments. 

Duong Van Sau from the Hanoi Culture University, said that Vietnam has many training establishments, but the training quality cannot satisfy society’s requirements, and that the schools generate ‘second-rate goods’ or ‘counterfeit goods’.

A survey conducted some years ago in Hanoi showed that businesses in Hanoi gave 3.05 out of 5 marks when asked to assess the university graduates’ capability to adapt to the works, which means that new university graduates are not highly appreciated and they need retraining.

While in other regional countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, policies and platforms for open education exist, in Vietnam, experts are still arguing about what ‘open education’ means.

“Vietnam has not prepared for the stages of education development. Reform in education programs and teaching and learning methods, to prepare for the 4.0 period still have not been made,” Tien said.

The resolution on education reform has been released, and the amended law on tertiary education has been ratified. However, many ‘bottlenecks’ in the education still exist.

RELATED NEWS

Many education reform projects fail, so who is to blame?

Education reform needs improving teachers’ qualification, school facilities