Beginning the 2022 – 2023 school year, besides seven mandatory subjects, senior high school students (from grade 10 to 12) can choose to study five subjects from three groups of subjects, which are social science subjects (geography, history, economy-law), natural science subjects (physics, chemistry, biology) and technology and arts (technology, computers, and arts).
The move has triggered public concerns that fewer and fewer students will choose history once it becomes optional and the subject is at risk of "disappearing" from the curriculum at many senior high schools.
Responding to the concern, Deputy Minister Do said under the new general education plan, the last three grades in senior high schools will be the career-oriented education phase after the nine-year “basic education phase” from the first to ninth grades.
History will remain a compulsory subject throughout the basic education phase when students are taught about general knowledge of the world’s and Vietnam’s history from primitive to modern times, the deputy minister said, emphasising that all students will receive comprehensive education of Vietnamese history at junior high school level (from grade 6 to 9). He further said that from the next academic year, the curriculum from the sixth to twelfth grade dedicates 20 percent of school time for local education content, including local history.
Prof., Dr. Nguyen Minh Thuyet, chief-editor of the new general education programme, said as history is a compulsory subject during the first nine school year of a student, it will provide students with basic knowledge to develop their own qualities and core competencies.
