The most important thing in education is to build a happy studying environment where technology supports students and lifelong learning spirit is nurtured, stated Vietnamese Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha on July 23.

Vietnamese Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha 

At the 50th Conference of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation (SEAMEO) in Kuala Lumpur, the minister also briefed participants on major achievement of Vietnam’s education over the years, including the universalisation of high-school education in 2010 and pre-school education for five-year-old children in 2017.

The quality of Vietnam’s high-school education has been recognised by the international community, while Vietnam has been on the world top 10 countries with highest scores at international science competitions, he highlighted.

The minister stressed that Vietnam has strengthened the application of IT in teaching and studying process as well as school management, thanks to which education quality has been improved and equality guaranteed for students, especially among underprivileged groups. 

However, he also pointed to a number of shortcomings in the sector, including difficulties in improving education quality in remote and mountainous areas and for ethnic minority students; violation in schools; problems in teaching life skills and easing pressure from exams, and raising teachers’ quality.

The minister held that technology will be useful in tackling these problems, and stressed the importance of building happy education environment.

He expressed his hope that participants at the conference will share their experience and initiatives to help ASEAN countries expand cooperation towards a region of prosperity and development.

On the sidelines of the event, Minister Nha had bilateral meetings with his Malaysian and Thai counterparts to share experience and ideas for better integration of Vietnamese education into the region and the world, and discussed strategies to build practical education environment with less pressure on students.

The Vietnamese delegation also visited a number of education facilities of Malaysia.

The SEAMEO, headquartered in Bangkok and established in November 1965, is an organisation that promotes cooperation in education, science and culture in Southeast Asia.

Since its inception, education ministers meet annually to discuss the achievement of 26 SEAMEO regional centres around the region covering financial reporting and current activity implementation as well as confirming future activity planning.

Since 2013, the SEAMEO conference has been held on a biennial basis by each member country rotationally.

Member countries are Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam.