Improving Overall Education Quality

In recent years, Kon Tum’s education and training sector has built and developed networks of schools to get rid of the phrase “blank villages in education- 100 percent illiteracy” and create the most favourable conditions to meet the study needs of students. The school system has grown to meet the basic study needs of the people.

In parallel with the development of the school system, focus is also placed on mobilising and sustaining the enrolment. In 1991, the percentage of students mobilized to school was at very low levels: pre-school, 29 percent; primary school, 60 percent; secondary school, 21 percent; and high school 4 percent, but in 2013 these ratios are 100 percent, 99.8 percent, 98.9 percent and 68 percent, respectively. The construction of the national standard schools has been focused on and obtained significant achievements. In the period of 1991-2000, the province did not have any schools meeting national standard, but in 2013 the number of national standard schools in the province is 93, accounting for 24.4 percent.

 

1995 marked the development of Kon Tum Province education when Kon Tum School for Gifted Students was established, a foundation for training talents. By 2010, the school was rebuilt and renamed Nguyen Tat Thanh School for Gifted Students with spacious facilities and modern teaching equipment to meet the requirements of training and retraining high quality human resources for the province.

 

Focusing on training and standardising teachers is among the key solutions that the Kon Tum education sector has pursued for 20 years, and brought outstanding results. By 2013, the total number of teachers and managers has been up to 9,687, an increase of 4,818 compared to 1991. Besides additional quantity, the teachers have been trained and standardised, so that the quality of the team has been significantly improved.

 

According to Nguyen Hoa, Deputy Director of Education & Training of Kon Tum province, after the re-establishment of the province, the illiteracy rate was very high in Kon Tum, and the universalisation of primary education was the focus. To address this, the industry has focused on illiteracy eradication and carried out primary education universalisation step by step. With the efforts of the sector, in 2009, secondary education universalisation was completed one year ahead of schedule and in 2010, the province completed primary education universalisation.

 

During the development stage, especially in recent years, the sector has taken measures to improve the quality of education, such as increasing the amount of learning by teaching 2 sessions/day at all levels, organising mentoring and training for weaker students, and enhancing Vietnamese minority students in kindergarten, elementary and secondary schools; innovating teaching methods towards promoting activeness among the pupils, and focusing on moral education and life skills for students to intensify training of gifted students. By implementing synchronous measures mentioned above, the quality of education, especially primary education, has shown very positive changes. The rate of students graduating from high schools and passing entrance exams to universities and colleges increases every year. The quality of education and the number of national excellent students are increasing.

 

Mr Hoa said: “The achievements will be the driving force to push the education sector to focus on implementing innovation policy on the development of education & training, improving the quality of comprehensive education, striving to make Kon Tum one of the localities with high quality education”.