Vietnam, a tiny country in Southeast Asia, is what I call home. It’s a poor country where daily meals are still hard math problems for many people. Its educational system still has many gaps : limitation in cost, teaching methods, facilities, style of learning and college admission examination, which makes Vietnam’s educational system falls behind compared to that of America. Realizing this, the Vietnam government has always been trying to push the learning limit of its students to guarantee not only the students’ better life, but also the destiny of the whole country. However, as they’re too busy thinking about the country, they forget that those children are still way too young to bear that much responsibility and pressure.
For instance, it’s not hard to see Vietnamese elementary students rushing to extra classes right after school, quickly eating their Banh Mi, while their parents are trying hard to get them to extra classes in time. This is far too much for these young kids as they definitely need to rest after a long strenuous day at school.
School in Vietnam starts at exactly seven in the morning, which means that these children have to get up earlier to get dressed and eat breakfast, and school ends at four or five PM in the afternoon. Yes, students spend approximately nine to ten hours a day at school from Monday to Friday. Put do they have time to relax? No. They go to extra classes on Saturday and Sunday too.
For instance, it’s not hard to see Vietnamese elementary students rushing to extra classes right after school, quickly eating their Banh Mi, while their parents are trying hard to get them to extra classes in time. This is far too much for these young kids as they definitely need to rest after a long strenuous day at school.
School in Vietnam starts at exactly seven in the morning, which means that these children have to get up earlier to get dressed and eat breakfast, and school ends at four or five PM in the afternoon. Yes, students spend approximately nine to ten hours a day at school from Monday to Friday. Put do they have time to relax? No. They go to extra classes on Saturday and Sunday too.
Vietnamese students have thirteen subjects to study in a week, more than double the amount of classes American students take in a semester, and they keep sticking to those thirteen classes for twelve years, from elementary to high school (some subjects got altered by the others, depends on grade level, but it never goes below the number thirteen).
There is a specific hierarchy in school, the relationship between teachers and students isn’t as friendly as in America, students should strictly follow what their teachers say and the school regulation.
Although Vietnam’s and America’s educational system both aim at training student’s ability to think on their feet, America seems to be doing a better job. As in Vietnam, lecture-based method plays the main role in teaching that students will listen to the whole lecture and take note, which results in the lack of interaction between professors and students and it also kills the student’s creativity.
There is a specific hierarchy in school, the relationship between teachers and students isn’t as friendly as in America, students should strictly follow what their teachers say and the school regulation.
Although Vietnam’s and America’s educational system both aim at training student’s ability to think on their feet, America seems to be doing a better job. As in Vietnam, lecture-based method plays the main role in teaching that students will listen to the whole lecture and take note, which results in the lack of interaction between professors and students and it also kills the student’s creativity.