Party General Secretary Tô Lâm visits the STEM classroom of Cầu Giấy Secondary School in Hà Nội.—VNA/VNS Photo Thống Nhất

HÀ NỘI — At Cầu Giấy Secondary School, which received the first STEM classroom presented by Party General Secretary Tô Lâm, teacher Nguyễn Thị Nhàn said the initiative had created a “powerful boost” for both teachers and pupils as they work to renew teaching and learning methods.

Nhàn, head of the school’s specialist group, said it was a great honour to welcome Lâm in May of this year when he visited and presented the STEM facility.

“Such a meaningful gift has marked a genuine turning point in the school’s approach to STEM education,” she said.

Since then, the school has drawn up a structured operational plan, held intensive training sessions and formally integrated STEM into its curriculum instead of treating it as an occasional activity.

Pupils have since become more enthusiastic about programming, robotics and high-tech experimentation, and more confident when entering domestic and international competitions.

“This academic year alone, the school has fielded 49 robotics teams for its internal tournament, five of which have advanced to the national round,” she said.

Experts say STEM’s strength lies in creating an environment where pupils learn and explore independently.

While rural pupils have the advantage of daily interaction with nature, gaining practical experience with trees, animals and their surroundings, which builds a foundation for observing and understanding the physical world, urban pupils often lack access to technology-rich learning spaces.

The introduction of modern STEM laboratories helps close that gap, providing a minimum platform for all children to access new knowledge.

The STEM classroom at Cầu Giấy Secondary School is one of 100 internationally standardised STEM rooms built under the STEM Innovation Petrovietnam programme led by the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (Petrovietnam) in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Training.

The programme stems from an idea of General Secretary TôLâm that aims to build 100 world-standard STEM classrooms in secondary and high schools across 34 provinces and cities in 2025.

More than an infrastructure investment, the programme seeks to establish a “STEM ecosystem” through teacher training, international linkages and opportunities for pupils to engage with global innovation standards. It aims to reach 10,000 schools between 2035 and 2045.

A significant step forward

Đỗ Hoàng Sơn, a leading STEM education pioneer and a core member of the Việt Nam STEM Alliance, said that in the current era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution with fierce global competition, digital transformation is a strategic and vital national task in realising the Resolution of the 14th National Party Congress and Việt Nam’s long-term development vision.

The ministry incorporated STEM education into the 2018 General Education Curriculum, marking an important milestone in the evolution of Vietnamese education.

Under the curriculum’s definition, STEM is interdisciplinary education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics where pupils learn through hands-on activities connected to real-life contexts.

Candidates at the HNUE Olympic STEM 2025 competition with the theme “Shaping a Green Future” on Sunday.—VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Tùng

STEM education now operates at three levels.

The first is universal STEM education for all pupils, a mandatory requirement since the 2018 curriculum was introduced. Implementing STEM at the local level has also become an indicator for evaluating task completion.

The second level is enhanced STEM for pupils interested in career orientation, typically offered through clubs.

The third targets highly creative pupils capable of breakthrough innovation, who compete in major national and international competitions.

Sơn said the Petrovietnam STEM Innovation system effectively supports all three levels.

He recalled bringing a leading expert from VEX Robotics, who has visited numerous laboratories worldwide, to Cầu Giấy Secondary School. The expert remarked that “it was the most advanced STEM classroom” he had seen.

The assessment, Sơn said, stemmed not from appearance but from the room’s structure, design, investment level and its optimisation for educational purposes.

The school now has more than 40 VEX Robotics teams actively competing.

Sơn also said an expanded STEM tournament was recently held in the northern mountainous province of Lạng Sơn, featuring exchanges with Chinese experts.

Seeing pupils from across Việt Nam competing under US standards and maintaining rigorous engineering notebooks, he said, shows that the country is undergoing substantive reform and moving from simple contests to real, practice-based learning.

National Assembly deputy Hà Ánh Phượng praised the programme’s humanistic value and long-term vision.

With many years of teaching experience in mountainous areas, she said Petrovietnam’s investment helps narrow regional disparities and offers pupils a modern learning environment they previously had no opportunity to access.

STEM education is not merely a trend but a foundational pillar for developing high-quality human resources for Việt Nam’s digital economy, she said.

Much more to be done

Sơn stressed that advancing STEM education, science and technology, digital transformation and national innovation is a long-term process that requires coordinated efforts, from infrastructure development and expert training to workforce building, system connectivity and the cultivation of scientific and technological culture.

These are areas in which Việt Nam still lacks experience and where significant work remains.

He said Việt Nam must revisit some fundamental concepts, including the role of teachers. If teachers continue to be defined solely as traditional knowledge transmitters, the country would need tens of millions of them to cover the vast scope of knowledge in the digital age.

Digital technologies and learning environments must therefore become essential components of teaching and learning.

STEM festivals and experiential hands-on activities are, in effect, new teachers delivering knowledge, experience and skills directly to pupils, he said.

Under the ministry’s direction, the 100 Petrovietnam STEM Innovation rooms will function as training and knowledge-transfer hubs, supporting the upskilling and reskilling of secondary school teachers nationwide.

This represents a significant contribution to promoting STEM education and broader educational reform in Việt Nam.

Investing in modern, standardised STEM classrooms is about building the minimum learning infrastructure needed to ensure that every pupil, whether in cities or remote mountainous areas, has access to meaningful and structured STEM education. — VNS