[Vnbiz] ***SPAM*** Re: Exam and cheating

[pthang at comcast.net]

Dear anh Hoanh,
You are absolutely correct.  I went back home in 2001 and dropped by a class room at Marie Curie. I saw the students are taught very intensive Math and physics. I heard  the study load for students in Japan , Taiwan and Korea is even more heavier. I also have noticed that Vietnamese students are doing very well  in US colleges especially during the first 2 years, because they have already studied most stuff during high school.

Granted that, I agree VN should change its educational system to become more efficient and more practical to build a faster production labor force  .

VR,

Thang


-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "Tran Dinh Hoanh" <tdhoanh at gmail.com> 

> 
> [Vietnam Business Forum] 
> 
> 
> 
> Dear CACC, 
> 
> As everyone can see every day, exam and cheating in Vietnam has become 
> a never-ending saga. Exam cheating has become a million-dollar 
> industry (Tax folks, try to tax them income tax for the national 
> budget! :-) Every day on the newspaper, there is at least one article 
> about exam cheating. 
> 
> Should we start to dissect this issue seriously and solve it? 
> Especially now that we have a new Minister of Education and Training? 
> 
> My first question is: Why do we need so many exams? Especially so 
> many national exams? Should we start to look at the exams themselves 
> before going further? 
> 
> As far as I am concerned, Vietnam education is a relic of the French, 
> which is at least 60 years behind the time. And the French system in 
> Vietnam was not even the real French. That was a system designed to 
> keep us stupid and to produce a handful of "yes-men" to serve the 
> French. Why are we still keeping it after 60 years of independence 
> from the French? Shouldn't we dump it into the garbage dump and start 
> a new system? 
> 
> The old French system was designed (1) to make you stop thinking. 
> Just sit and listen and say "yes" and learn by heart what your French 
> teacher told you, and (2) to reduce talent to the maximum and to allow 
> only a handful of people to obtain a degree. Lots and lots of exams 
> were placed at every stage of the education process to chop heads, to 
> KEEP PEOPLE OUT of the system, to keep people out of school, to give 
> only a handful of people the economic and political privileges that 
> went with a degree, and not to prove that the students had gained 
> enough fundamental knowledge to function well in the society. 
> 
> So what we need to think now is the entire education and exam system. 
> What exams we need? What we don't need? And when we need an exam, 
> how it should be done? These are the question we need to address to 
> revolutionize our system. And I say "revolutionize." We need a 
> revolution in our education system, to bring it to the modern time. A 
> little bandage here, a little bandage there won't work. 
> 
> Now let's start with the easy one first: College annual exams and 
> graduation exams. Do we need them? Or shouldn't we just stick with 
> each course's result. Each course will have its assigned homework, 
> class attendance record, quizzes, exams at the end of the course 
> (usually at the end of each semester), in a small class setting, in 
> which there is no motivation and no ability to cheat. This would 
> require the students to work all year round instead of playing all 
> year round and cramming of the exam at the end only. And when a 
> student is done with all the courses, why can't he graduate instead of 
> sitting for another graduation exam? 
> 
> Now college entrance exam: Why do we need to have a national college 
> entrance exam? What's wrong with the student's high school record and 
> the student's resume? If there is some standard test to prove 
> "general competency", can we have a private company doing the testing 
> instead (like TOFFLE test)? The private testing service (usually a 
> not-for-profit corporation) will set up its own exam schedules 
> throughout the year for the students to take in small groups. No 
> possibility for cheating. And the student will pay a fee for the exam 
> (so the government doesn't have to spend money). The testing company 
> will meet all international standards of testing procedures. The 
> students will just submit the "general competency test" result, along 
> with his high school record, his resume, his reference letters, etc., 
> to the college he wants to enter and let the college decide 
> 
> And each college just has to decide how to structure its admission 
> procedure: Does it want an additional exam for the students who submit 
> entrance application? Or just rely on the students' existing record? 
> Does it want to interview each student? How much weight it wants to 
> give to the student's working experience? Etc... 
> 
> I am just throwing some ideas here for us to think about and to 
> discuss. Whatever we want to do, there is one thing we need to do for 
> sure: We have to revolutionize our education system. The current 
> system is at least 60 years behind the time and it sucks! 
> 
> You brothers/sisters in this forum, most of you have studied abroad 
> and have traveled abroad intensively, so please address this issue 
> seriously. We need to solve our education problems. 
> 
> Have a great day! 
> 
> Hoanh 
> -- 
> Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD 
> Attorney of Law 
> Washington DC 
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