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Labor & education : MoET to train 5,000 informatics teachers

The Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) will train 5,000 informatics teachers for the 2003-04 academic year to bring back Informatics as a compulsory subject at senior secondary schools nationwide, according to Head of the MoET's Senior Secondary Department Nguyen Van Trang.

Of the trainees, 2,000 will be informatics postgraduates while the remainder be technicians. The ministry also plans to provide all grade teachers and other staff with basic knowledge on computer use because of information technology applications in teaching, management and exams, Trang said. However, the ministry has yet to compile uniform informatics curriculum for schools.

The subject was first taught in grade schools in 1993 but was only considered an optional vocational subject. Teachers of other subjects such as Maths and Physics were giving informatics lessons and the training quality was generally poor. Moreover, only a certain number of urban schools had sufficient equipment to teach it. The equipment shortage is still a major challenge for the return of the subject and the ministry has not announced any investment for the program.

Even the Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Senior Secondary School in Ho Chi Minh City, which has good infrastructure, will not be able to begin teaching Informatics immediately for such reasons. The country has around 20,000 grade schools listed in the plan to popularize information technology, reports the ministry.

Financial Times Information / Sài Gòn Giai Phong - October 03, 2002.