As the new school year starts in Vietnam, a number of initiatives have been introduced by the country’s Ministry of Education and Training. Along with an emphasis on health checks for all pre-school children, to include nutritional and growth assessments, and the state of their teeth, the Ministry has asked schools to focus on introducing children to the English language.
As reported by Vietnamplus, public pre-schools must now offer English classes if it’s at all possible. To this end, 39 approved sets of English language books are being distributed around the country to these facilities.
“Teaching English at pre-schools is completely voluntary,” the director of the Department for Pre-school Education, Nguyen Ba Minh, explains. “For schools qualified in terms of facilities, teachers with parents’ support can organise English classes for children as a way of getting acquainted with the English language.”
The hope is that children will become familiar with at least some words and full sentences in English, and be able to understand simple questions and respond, either verbally or non-verbally, when they come to the end of their time at the school. However, like much of the world post-Covid, Vietnam is also experiencing a drop in the number of qualified teachers on hand to implement these changes, particularly in rural and remote areas.
