Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on August 17 had a working session with the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) on the implementation of the 11th National Party Congress’ Resolution and on comprehensive education reform and raising human resource training to meet the country’s needs in the 21 st century.

Speaking at the session, Minister of Education and Training Pham Vu Luan reported that policies enhancing efficiency and quality of the sector have been incorporated to meet the Party’s goals.

The sector has also focused efforts on implementing a national curriculum for pre-school education for under-five children, as well as providing support to disadvantaged children to ensure that they can go to school.

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan said the Government has made considerable achievements on the establishment of permanent schools and provision of accommodation for teachers, raising the rate of permanent schools from 52 percent to 72 percent.

Overall 2.1 million poor or disadvantaged students have been provided with financial assistance during the four years of the programme to date. Despite all successes to date, shortcomings remain and many delegates underscored the necessity to thoroughly reform education management as well as teaching and learning methodology.

Also, regardless of low financial resources and many organizational difficulties, the education sector has developed and diversified, meeting the demands of 22 million learners.

The ethnic community in remote and mountainous areas has also received considerable investment to ensure social equality in education and training. In spite of the sector’s endeavours, the education and training quality and efficiency remain low. In addition, curriculums and exams are outdated with little bearing on the reality faced by students in the real world.

Party leader Trong underlined the need to have a long-term strategic vision to succeed in comprehensive education and training reform. In the short term, he asked for immediate focuses on teaching ethics, further improving management quality, decentralisation and paying attention to solving pressing issues in the field.-VNA