Ministry of Education and Training guides teaching integrated subjects

On October 24, the Ministry of Education and Training issued a document guiding the removal of difficulties in teaching Natural Sciences (integrating Physics, Chemistry, Biology), History and Geography.

Specifically, the Natural Science subject has four main content strands, including: Matter and its transformation, Energy and transformation, Living things, Earth and the sky. The Ministry recommends that schools assign teachers with expertise appropriate to the content, according to the program strands. Subject teachers in each class will coordinate with other teachers to test, evaluate and unify students' scores. The Ministry believes that allowing teachers to teach two or more content strands or the entire subject must be done step by step.

The Ministry noted that schools should develop teaching plans according to content flow and be flexible in arranging timetables scientifically, ensuring pedagogy and teachers' implementation ability.

For History and Geography, schools can arrange to teach both subjects at the same time. Testing and evaluation are also based on each subject.

In fact, this instruction from the Ministry of Education and Training is the way that many schools have applied - that is, teaching integrated subjects but in the way that teachers of each subject teach that subject separately. For example, Natural Science will be taught by Chemistry, Physics, and Biology teachers together, instead of just one teacher. The task of creating test questions and grading students is also agreed upon and divided among teachers.

This arises because there are currently almost no teachers who are properly trained in integrated teaching, teachers mainly teach single subjects. In 2021, the Ministry of Education and Training issued a training program for integrated teachers, with a duration of 20-36 credits. In about 6 months, a History teacher is trained to teach Geography, and the same goes for other subjects. However, according to schools, it is very difficult for a teacher to confidently teach integrated teaching after such a short time.

Currently, many schools arrange teachers to teach alternately, meaning that whoever teaches their lesson, that person will teach it. There are also schools where teachers teach each subject in turn, for example, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, so the timetable is disrupted. Some teachers teach dozens of periods a week, but some weeks they don't have enough periods.

Many people worry that this may not ensure the quality of teaching and learning. Because the goal of integrated subjects is to help students have a comprehensive view, combine knowledge from many fields to solve problems in life, save time for experience, but in reality it is like a subject combined from old subjects.

In mid-August, when meeting with teachers nationwide, Minister Nguyen Kim Son admitted that integrated teaching was one of the biggest bottlenecks and difficulties in implementing the new program, and could be adjusted.

At that time, many teachers and managers proposed to separate these subjects into single subjects as before.

However, Associate Professor Dr. Chu Cam Tho, Head of the Education Evaluation Research Department, Vietnam Institute of Educational Sciences, said that it would be a pity if integrated subjects were separated into individual subjects, because integrated teaching is the right policy, helping students develop qualities and abilities as the goal of the new program. According to her, schools should be autonomous in this matter. Schools that do well should be encouraged to continue, and those that are struggling should be supported.