Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan

VietNamNet Bridge – Education Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan has said that as of this school year students would be given a chance to assess their instructors.  

At present, the Teachers’ Department under the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) is working on this plan, said Mr. Nhan. 

Since Minister Nhan brought up the idea of students evaluating their teachers’ performance, educators and students alike have shown support for the plan. 

“I support the idea of collecting students’ opinions about their teachers. I used to teach in Japan, and there, an instructor walks out of a class and students are given a whole class period to fill in comment sheets, which are then sent to the school management board,” said Vo Ven Sen, President of HCM City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, which conducted a university-wide senior students’ assessment in July.   

Mr. Sen and others also suggested learning from assessment sheets used in other countries that have long allowed students to evaluate their instructors. Such areas as professional knowledge, teaching methods and ethics should be focused on. 

Giving students chances to assess instructors is basically part of the democratising process in all aspects at schools and thus should be encouraged, said Nguyen Van Hung, President of Hanoi University of Construction. Yet, students themselves should also be instructed to be objective in their assessments. 

And this means that it will take a little time before students, and teachers for that matter, become familiar with this culture of self-evaluation and criticism. As for Hanoi University of Construction, it won’t carry out any student assessments this school year. 

Other school presidents also emphasise the need for a detailed guideline from MoET, which will soon come out, according to Deputy Education Minister Banh Tien Long. “In the near future, the Higher Education Department will help universities to carry out student assessments,” said he.  

As for students, many of them also support the idea, albeit with the concern that the assessments may not be carried out in a comprehensive and effective manner. “In fact, some high schools and universities have established student comment letter boxes, but these haven’t been very effective,” said a student from the Institute of Journalism and Propaganda.

(Source: VNE)