Charles Barman (above left), Ginette Delandshere (second from right) and Natalie Barman (right) talk with educators at Thai Nguyen University. Four Indiana University School of Education faculty members spent much of the winter break in Vietnam serving as consultants to the Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training on the Vietnamese Teacher Education Reform Project.
Charles Barman (above left), Ginette Delandshere (second from right) and Natalie Barman (right) talk with educators at Thai Nguyen University.
Charles Barman and Natalie Barman from IUPUI and Terrence Mason and Ginette Delandshere from Bloomington spent three weeks talking to and working with government officials and educators about ways to change the educational system in that country.
The system of education in Vietnam is different and more closely resembles the Soviet model than any other. Unlike comprehensive universities in the United States, there are many schools which focus on a single profession or academic discipline.
A liberal arts grounding is not so universally stressed. Students do not progress course by course, but year by year. They are not familiar with the U.S. system of taking several individual courses at one time and being graded separately in each one.
They study for a year and then take one major test. If they fail that, they must repeat the entire year's study. And it is not easy to change career plans.
Mason and his wife, Ginette Delandshere, and the Barmans, also married, went to Vietnam together as a team. They visited Hanoi National University and Thai Nguyen University, which is really a cluster of specialized colleges which are now trying out some aspects of the American system.
The Indiana team reviewed the Vietnamese plans for change. One goal of the reform project is to improve the training of teachers. At present, the requirements for becoming a teacher are considerably different than those in the U.S.; some graduate from teacher training institutions in only two years. The IU educators explained how American universities are organized and discussed curriculum and teaching methods. They took with them many educational materials including books and videos.
"The Vietnamese are in the initial stages of moving from a closed system of education to a more flexible credit system," Charles Barman said. "Therefore, instead of engaging in curriculum development, we spent most of our time explaining how the credit system works at a major multidisci-plinary university in the United States."
Mason said changes in Vietnam may be difficult and may not always have the desired results, especially in light of the fact that Vietnam is one of the poorest nations in the world.
He cautioned officials not to try to do too much too fast. Superimposing a modern educational system too quickly on that traditional and culturally different nation might cause many problems. In addition to the economic stresses, many educators in Vietnam are familiar and satisfied with the present system and are resisting change.
Thai Nguyen University's equivalent to IUB's Sample Gates
"The leaders in education have a vision of the changes they would like to make in their system but accomplishing that task will need to involve educators and teachers at all levels," Natalie Barman said.
"At this time they have a shortage of qualified teachers at all levels, especially in the rural areas. At the same time that the country needs to increase the number of teachers in the classroom, they also want to begin to raise the standards for teacher qualification; this will be a difficult task."
She believes it will be better for Vietnamese to adapt the elements of the American system to fit in Vietnam, rather than simply to copy the U.S. model.
Mason was generally pleased with the results of the visit.
"I think the Vietnamese did seem to gain some real understanding."
The faculty members hope that the next phase of the project will be to bring some Vietnamese educators to IU. They invite communication from others in the IU community who are interested in Vietnam. Mason urged them to contact the dean's office in the School of Education.
Charles Barman is director of teacher education at IUPUI. Natalie Barman is a part-time lecturer there and a fifth-grade science teacher at Park Tudor School in Indianapolis. Mason and Delandshere both teach on the Bloomington campus.
Their venture grew out of a trip Don Warren, university dean of education at IU, took to Vietnam last May.
Warren was keynote speaker at a conference on higher education reform, but he soon realized that the Vietnamese wanted and needed more than a speech and a conference. He pledged IU's assistance in their efforts to change.
Related Link:
http://education.indiana.edu/~extrela/alumni/warren.html
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