NA's committee proposes making history compulsory subject at senior high schools

The report said that during the implementation of the 2018 general education programme, many voters as well as the public showed concerns about the plan, which is scheduled to be realised in the 2022 – 2023 school year, holding that it will affect the education of national patriotism and historical traditions among students.

It analysed that as history becomes an optional subject in senior high school education, there will be three possibilities.

In the first one, if students choose history as one of the five selective subjects, they will have 210 lessons in total in three academic years, 70 more compared to the 2006 general education programme.

In the second scenario where students select history as one of the five selective subjects and make it one of their thematic subjects for in-depth study, they will take 315 lessons in three years, up 175 lessons compared to the 2006 general education programme.

In the last possibility when students do not choose history, they will have no lessons at all and historical knowledge will only be associated with some other subjects.

As part of efforts to perform the task assigned by the NA in supervising the renovation of curriculum and textbooks for the senior high school education, the committee held consultations with experts, scientists and teachers, and attended a meeting of the Government Office on history subject in the general education programme, said the report.

The committee commented that compared to the 2006 general education programme, history education in the 2008 general education programme has many new contents and has been made more simple, with focus on shaping capacity and morality for students through renovated teaching, testing and evaluating methods.

The report underlined that the majority of voters, experts, scientists and teachers showed disagreement with the plan to make history a selective subject in the senior high school curriculum. They stressed the significance of the subject in political and ideological education for younger generations, inspiring their patriotism and national pride, educating them cultural traditions and history, providing them with the capacity to think, act, and behave properly in social life, thereby forming the virtues of Vietnamese citizens, global citizens, said the report.

It underscored that if students choose not to take history lessons, they will miss the chance to access important and educational knowledge that are significant to them in their ages.

The report also pointed out that in countries around the world, history remains a compulsory subject in their national senior high school curriculum.

Therefore, the NA Committee for Culture and Education asked the Ministry of Education and Training to acquire ideas of people, historical experts and NA deputies, keeping history a compulsory subject in the 20218 general education programme with suitable knowledge contents, while continuing to renovate the methods of teaching, examining and evaluating for the subject and inspiring their love for history.