VietNamNet Bridge – Realising that teaching art in general schools has not brought the expected effects, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) is considering reducing the numbers of school hours for art subjects.

For the first time, MOET held a big conference on art teaching in general schools in Hanoi on June 10-11.

The big names of Vietnamese art in the mid 20^th century, including To Ngoc Van, Nguyen Tuong Van or Le Thi Luu, all were art teachers at Chu Van An School before 1945. This means that fine arts subjects appeared in school curricula at that time.

However, from Hanoi’s liberation in 1954 until 2000, these subjects became unfamiliar to Vietnamese students. For many reasons, these subjects could not find a firm position in schools. Only in 2002 did textbooks for music and fine arts reappear.

In Vietnam, experts spent a lot of time discussing whether to teach art subjects in schools, while in developed countries the teaching of these subjects is considered a self-evident necessity.

Dr Nguyen Anh Dung, Deputy Head of the Education Science Institute under MOET, said that artists have had the merit of bringing art subjects to schools. In 1980s, musicians Hoang Lan, Le Minh Chau and Han Ngoc Bich had to go to provincial authorities to explain the necessity of teaching art subjects in schools. The musicians even had to compile textbooks, spend their own money to print the textbooks and sell the textbooks to teachers and students.

Stop teaching because of low efficiency?

Currently, fine arts and music are listed as two of the nine official subjects being taught to school students from 1^st to 9^th classes. However, MOET is considering reducing the number of hours for art subjects.

The problem lies in the fact that the current curricula are considered too much for students and it is necessary to reduce school hours to ease the burden on students. And as a matter of course, MOET is thinking of reducing hours for art subjects.

MOET’s leaders said that in some localities, the teaching of these subjects is not efficient. Therefore, it would be better to focus on improving the quality of teaching of other subjects (Vietnamese language and mathematics) rather than spending time on these subjects.

Participants at the said conference admitted that the quality of art teaching in schools is very low.

A lot of reasons have been cited to explain the low teaching quality, but the most prominent is the poor qualifications of teachers.

There are 31,500 teachers of music and fine arts in schools nationwide and the majority of them don’t have necessary qualifications and pedagogical skills. It is not uncommon to see a music teacher who cannot play electronic musical instruments, or to see a fine arts teacher who cannot comment on pictures.

Meanwhile, many other teachers, who have good qualifications, do not have pedagogical skills. They cannot differentiate between teaching music to students and teaching to professional subjects.

However, participants all agreed that the low efficiency of teaching does not mean that it’s necessary to stop teaching. The thing that needs to be done now is to find solutions to the problem.

Pham Ngoc Dinh, Deputy Director of the Primary Education Department under MOET, also said that Vietnam needs to strive to have a comprehensive education, and art education is an indispensable part of mental education.

(Source: Tien phong)