Illustration by Trịnh Lập

by Nguyễn Mỹ Hà

Preliminary assessment results of a major metric system show that Vietnamese students continue to lead in maths, reading and writing, but a national vision to boost creativity and art is also hoped to improve the fortunes of the country's next generation.

The announcement of early results covering 2024 provided by Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM), made by the Ministry of Education and Training on May 12, details assessments participated in by students of Cambodia, Timor-Leste, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Việt Nam. The final results will be released by the end of this year.

The SEA-PLM assessment takes place every five years, to give educators enough indicators for education assessment and making appropriate amendments. Việt Nam joined the programme to get an objective assessment of its primary education on a larger scale with neighbouring countries.

Since 2012, the SEA-PLM programme has been developed to recognise the regional learning evaluation and capacity-building programme tailored to meet the need of Southeast Asian countries and help them to strengthen their evaluation system and facilitate evidence-based methods to improve learning results.

SEA-PLM 2019, the initiative's first assessment cycle, has played a vital role in creating informed decisions at the country and system-wide levels.

Việt Nam started its experimental assessment in 2023 at 30 education facilities in nine provinces and cities. The official assessment in 2024 was held among 152 primary education facilities in 53 cities and provinces across the country.

The results give in-depth analysis of education issues and suggest methods to improve national education quality. They are also deemed an opportunity for Việt Nam to integrate deeper into ASEAN's common education platform.

The SEA-PLM provides valuable information to help Vietnamese educators and policymakers to share international experience and improve education quality, to get the students ready for the challenges ahead in their lives.

The primary education initial results also comply with the OECD's Programme for International Assessment (PISA) for young students under 15, which Việt Nam is also a part of. The PISA results of 2022 released in 2024 showed that Vietnamese students ranked 2nd, behind Singapore.

In maths, Vietnamese students ranked behind Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, and South Korea when compared with students with similar socio-economic indicators.

While maths, reading and writing are the prerequisite assessment for children's education to teach them the fundamentals, it is believed that broader perspectives and skills would add to children's experiences and develop their IQs and EQs to become better-rounded people.

A week ago, after working sessions with the Ministry of Education and Training, Việt Nam Communist Party General Secretary Tô Lâm opined on this broader vision for the country's youth.

"During the working sessions, I was told we lacked hundreds of art teachers. But we must not restrict ourselves to art teachers. You can always invite singers, musicians and other artists to teach our children. The same goes for sports."

This suggestion received applause among both students and parents.

"What an approach, how wonderful," exclaimed Lương Thanh Hà under the video clip on the National Television fanpage. "Until now, children learn some songs, music and drawing, and even English at school, but they are still shy trying to practise English."

Hà wrote, "You touched upon parents' concerns that children must get physical education to be healthy, and arts training to enrich their souls, not to solve sophisticated problems challenged to them by adults."

Hà further said that if children study in two-session days, they could learn prerequisite subjects in the morning and learn the arts in the afternoon.

"This is great if it can be applied to reality," wrote another parent. "But we still have to face over-crowded classrooms of 50 to 60 students, and we'll need to solve that problem first."

Nghiêm Thị Minh wrote: "It's a great idea, if our children get to study with their artistic idols, they'll make good progress looking up to their role models."

"If you can lift the pressure of studying, then parents around the country will thank you."

"Let's make it a reality so each child, when he or she graduates from high school can play an instrument, or has been given basic skills to continue pursuing arts accordingly to their ability and family's wishes," she added. VNS