Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha (Source: VNA) HCM City (VNA) – Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha asked Ho Chi Minh City to take the initiative in reducing school students’ study overload and putting an end to redundant extra classes, during a meeting with the city’s leaders on June 7.
The minister promised to back the city by releasing guiding documents and working with the locality in dealing with the issue.
According to Le Hong Son, Director of the municipal Department of Education and Training, onerously academic and impractical curricula, coupled with an unreasonable teaching programme still puts a heavy burden on students, forcing them to take private tutoring classes.
Meanwhile, overcrowded classrooms due to rapid population growth amidst inadequate infrastructure and a lack of high-quality teachers, also makes it difficult for the city to transform its education sector, he said.
Son noted that in recent years, the number of students has been increasing by 65,000 each year, which means 3,000 more classrooms need to be built to meet demand.
To improve the situation, Secretary of the municipal Party Committee Dinh La Thang directed the city to ban extra classes at schools, except those for students with poor academic records.
A new master plan to develop the education-training sector of the city in the 2015-2020 period, which concentrates more on moral and physical development for students, is also crucial to enhancing education quality, he said.
Meanwhile, he also proposed that the Ministry of Education and Training gives more power to the city to deal with a number of problems it is facing, alongside designing special policy for the city’s education sector.
Each year, the city spends 26 percent of the total budget spending on education and training, while mobilising investment resources to the sector, in a hope to raise its quality.-VNA
