The HCM City Department of Education and Training on Monday honoured 50 outstanding teachers and school managers with the annual Võ Trường Toản Awards. VNA/VNS Photo. Thu Hoài

HCM CITY— HCM City Department of Education and Training on Monday honoured 65 outstanding teachers and managers with the annual Võ Trường Toản Awards and Meritorious Teacher title.

Besides innovation in teaching, many also volunteered to go to the frontlines to fight COVID-19 during the city's fourth wave that began in April.

They include Nguyễn Tường Thịnh, a physics teacher at Nguyễn Du High School in District 10, who uses IT to make lessons more interesting and comprehensible.

One of his students, who went on to win a gold medal in the Olympic Competition for Excellent Students in the Southern Region, had lacked confidence and was afraid of failure and so wanted to pull out, but Thịnh’s encouragement and guidance persuaded him to continue.  

When a semester ends, Thịnh encourages his students to write to him to provide feedback about his teaching methods.

Nguyễn Thị Hoa, principal of Kindergarten 13 in Bình Thạnh District, received the Võ Trường Toản Award for outstanding achievements in managing and developing a kindergarten.

She volunteered to work with medical workers at vaccination sites and raised funds for taking care of people quarantined in her kindergarten, which had been used for it.

Bùi Minh Tâm, rector of Lương Thế Vinh High School, who received the Võ Trường Toản Award, visited the houses of students with COVID-19 to hand over textbooks and learning devices besides managing her school outstandingly.   

The Võ Trường Toản Awards also honoured two teachers at continuing education centres.

 Đặng Ngọc Thu is head of the Continuing Education Centre in District 6.

When she started out in 2013 it lacked teaching facilities, leading to low quality. Many of its students are workers at factories in Bình Tân District. Thu spent a lot of time finding out their difficulties and coming up with solutions to address them.   

For the last five years it has been among the top five in terms of rate of graduates in the city. It now has 1,800 students, triple the number eight years ago.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, Dương Anh Đức, vice chairman of the city People’s Committee, said the pandemic had severely affected education, but teachers were making huge efforts to prevent disruption for students.

He solicited suggestions for policies to benefit managers of schools and relevant government agencies. VNS