[Vnbiz] Literature exam

Fri Aug 11 07:23:53 PDT 2006

Dear sisters Dong Vy, Dieu Anh, bro. Viet & CACC,

So glad to hear from you, Dong Vy sister dear!

Chi D. Anh is right that now we have new PM and new Minister of MOET.  We
are ready for a major reform and we need to support these gentlemen.  They
won't be able to do their job well without very strong support from us.

There are 3 major point I'd like to emphasize:

1.  We really need a revolution in our education system.  The education
system is so irrational, so ineffective, so corrupt, so incompetent, so
abusive that any measure short of a complete makeover from the very
foundation up won't work.  The revolution doesn't have to happen and finish
in a month.  It can be spread out over a period of time.  But it will have
to be a complete revolution.  Please forget about bandage solutions.  They
won't work and some day they will back fire.  They will trigger a kind of
revolution that we cannot control.

2.  Let me remind a story I posted here several months ago.  Several years
ago, one day I got a call from a lady.  She said she is from the World Bank,
in charge of Vietnam education, and she'd like to talk to me.  We met over
lunch at the World Bank (My office was only several blocks away from the
WB).  The first question out of my mouth was "Why me?"  She said she was in
charge of the WB fund allocated for Vietnam education.  She had just
finished a tour of Vietnam talking to the folks at MOET in Hanoi and
presidents of various universities in Hanoi and Saigon.  After the tour she
was completely frustrated because no one in the country had a plan to reform
the system and to use the money for reform.  So she when back to Hanoi and
checked around.  Someone at the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the
Prime Minister office gave her my name and phone number and told her to go
back to Washington DC and talked to me about education reform.  They told
her, "Mr. Hoanh paid a lot of attention to education and he knows a lot
about our education."  So I chatted with her for a couple of hours.

This story is not about me :-(  It is about this: Most people with highest
degrees in the country end up in our education system.  Meaning, our
education establishment has the best minds of the country.  Why a group of
people like that have become so brain dead, so non-thinking, so passive, so
immoral, so incompetent, so abusive?  (Of course, there are many good folks
in the system.  But they also have become so non-consequential).

This question must be addressed, for us to really understand the nature of
reform.

3.  We are not merely talking about some administrative or economic reform.
We are talking about a hundred-year project to "plant people," to truly
plant the future of our nation.  Please work with your whole heart, your
whole mind and your whole soul.

Have a great day!

Hoanh
On 8/11/06, Dang Nguyen Dong Vy <dongvy at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> [Vietnam Business Forum]
>
>
>
> Dear anh Hoanh and CACC,
>
> I am extreme agree with you about this irrational kind
> of literature
> exam. Ten years ago, I was one of "Hoc sinh Gioi Van
> cap quoc gia"...but my scores always was unbelievable
> change from 9 to 3 depended on the kind of theme! Just
> because I can't
> remember details of author's biography, or know by
> heart whole (and word by word) the Hich Tuong Si or
> Truong Ca Dat Nuoc,...
> This issue is not only about the literature exam but
> also the way of teaching and learning. It's crucial
> problem of the Education reform.
>
> Have a great day!
> Đong Vy
>
> On 7/25/06, Tran Dinh Hoanh <tdhoanh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear CACC,
>
> This VNExpress article is about the literature exam,
> with bad answers
> from students.
>
> According to this article, I would never pass this
> kind of literature
> exam.  For example, it seems you're supposed to talk
> about various
> authors and their work and some of the characters in
> some novels.
> These kinds of details, my mind would never retain.
> Generally I can't
> remember the names of the main characters of a movie
> or a novel right
> after watching/reading.  Details of author's life like
> when he was
> born, when he died, etc...  If I need to know these
> details today, I
> just
> open a book.  That what the libraries and the books
> are for.
>
> Give me a poem and ask me to explain my feeling about
> that poem, then
> probably I can say something.  But ask me about a lot
> of names and
> years and little facts, chances I don't know the
> answer.
>
> The issue is:  Should we need to cluster our students'
> head with a lot
> of unnecessary facts, or we just want them to know how
> to think?
>
> Have a great day!
>
> Hoanh
>
>
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-- 
Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD
Attorney of Law
Washington DC
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