The standards, released in draft form by the Ministry of Education and Training this week, fall into 29 categories including physical education, emotional development, social skills, awareness, studiousness, intellectual preparedness, and language and communication skills.

If the draft is implemented, kindergarten teachers would have to evaluate their students’ development based on the standards each semester.

The proposal has been released for public feedback and would be revised and submitted for approval at a later date, said ministry officials.

The standards aim to provide a basis for kindergarten teachers to adjust their teaching methods accordingly, while also helping parents enhance their ability to nurture, educate and prepare their children for first grade, according to the ministry.

But parents and educators have criticized the draft for being impractical, complicated and unnecessary, while even its lesser critics say the standards need to be revised.

Bewildered

Nguyen Thi Hong Van, who teaches kindergarten in Ho Chi Minh City’s Phu Nhuan District, said some of the requirements were highly impractical.

For example, she said the standard requiring five-year-olds to walk backwards for at least five meters in a straight line needed to be reconsidered as not all children at that age could complete the task.

Hanoian Hoang Yen from Thanh Xuan District, whose child is five years old, agreed that several of the ministry’s points were simply out of reach for some children. She said too many of the standards were subjective and depended on students’ personalities rather than their education.

She said the ministry couldn’t require that all children be “interested” in the arts and nature, as some kids simply weren’t going to be moved by those things.

Pharmacist Le Thu said her son’s teachers had always said he was ahead of his peers.

“But he fails to meet several of the ministry’s [new] requirements,” she said.

Thu said her son was smart, but often walked up stairs by putting two feet on the same stair instead of only stepping on each stair once, as regulated by the draft.

Impossible

Tran Thi Oanh, who has been a kindergarten teacher for 17 years, said several of the requirements were vague and impossible to implement.

She wondered how teachers would follow up on ministry rules like: “children should not follow strangers or receive anything from strangers.”

Oanh said many of the requirements depended on parents, such as “knowing their [the children’s] addresses and telephone numbers.”

On the other hand, several teachers and parents said some of the requirements like using spoons properly, knowing if they are boys or girls, buttoning and unbuttoning clothes, naming the foods in daily meals and knowing their parents’ names were simply too easy.

Van from HCMC said that because there were no strict requirements for preschool teachers, some were inexperienced and probably wouldn’t follow ministry regulations anyway.

Principal of Hanoi’s Hoa Sen Kindergarten Phan Thi Tam said it would be too time-consuming to assess a child’s development by the 125 points.

She said it would be especially difficult for crowded classes of 50 to 60 students.

It would also put too much pressure on both students and teachers, she said.

Dr. La Bac Ly from the Hanoi University of Education’s Preschool Department said such a set of standards was unnecessary because each child would develop in his or her own way.

He said that psychologists already used IQ (intelligence quotient) indexes to assess children’s intelligence, while nutritionists and health experts already assessed children’s physical development through a series of conventional tests.

“We don’t need another set of standards,” he said.

Revision

But some say the standards weren’t all bad, even if they could use some adjustment.

Tam said some of the standards were acceptable. She said a standard requiring students to run 150 meters wouldn’t be difficult to implement as her students were already required to jog 120 meters and sprint 80 meters in physical education classes.

Oanh said that five-year-old children were now developing more rapidly than previous generations, so they could be expected to fulfill loftier requirements than in the past.

Tam said the new set of standards would be useful for teachers and parents in general. She said the requirements could help both sets of adults get to know the children better.

But since not all students develop in exactly the same way, the ministry should change the word “standards” into “guidelines,” Tam suggested.

Huynh Van Son, a psychologist from the HCMC University of Education, said the draft failed to mention how measuring children’s height and weight would come into play in judging their physical development.

He also said the draft should eliminate its vague and abstract terminology like asking children to “be interested” in “natural phenomena.”

“To some degree, it is necessary to set up the standards,” Son said. “But it needs to be clear, [practical] and understandable, for not only teachers but parents as well.”

Ministry official Van Dinh Ung said experts had begun working on the standards in 2005 after meeting with foreign partners and holding related conferences.

Asked about what the scientific basis was for drafting the standards, Ung said the ministry would answer at a later date.

In an interview with Tuoi Tre, Le Thi Lien Hoan, deputy head of the HCMC Department of Education and Training’s Preschool Education office, said the standards had been set up in meetings with several local and foreign experts.

She said the new regulations were part of a global project sponsored by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

She also said the standards would be vital to the development of education here, as the ministry plans to write new kindergarten curricula based on feedback of the new standards.

                                                                                   ( Thanhniennews.com )