USSH – Presentation by MSc. Nguyen Thu Giang (lecturer of Faculty of Journalism and Communication) participating in the Conference on Summary of 4 years of credit-based university training, to be held on December 4.
In this presentation, I would like to speak in three capacities: first, as an assistant in drafting the credit program of the Faculty of Journalism and Communication in the early days of the transition, second as an academic advisor, and third as a lecturer. First, I must affirm that from the beginning, I have always supported the transition from the year system to the credit system. I will clarify the reasons for this consensus below in order to explain my following comments. In my opinion, the transition from the year system to the credit system is like a change that, even if it fails, can hardly have worse consequences. I believe that I am one of the few members of the school who supported this transition from the early days. At that time, I saw that the majority of people did not support it because many thought that the new training system would make the situation worse. In other words, it seemed that at that time everyone shared the presupposition that the year system was still quite stable. I think that is a false assumption. The year system needs to be changed and must be changed because if we continue to maintain the old way of teaching, it is very possible that one day our schools will no longer have many students to teach.
The year system needs to be changed and must be changed because if we continue to maintain the old way of learning, it is very possible that one day our school will no longer have many students to teach.
I mention this again to share with everyone my respect and recognition for the officers of the Training Department (I still remember the grimaces of Mr. Pham Gia Lam and Mr. Dinh Viet Hai every time they discussed the issue of credits). They are the ones who faced the crowd, patiently made mistakes, patiently learned, patiently changed, and patiently explained to achieve a fairly clear transformation, first and foremost in form, between the two training systems. The transformation in nature and content, frankly speaking, is not within the responsibility, nor the ability of the Training Department. It is the long-term work of the whole school, of each teaching staff. In my heart, I think that these are the people who are willing to go into battle, although it is not that they do not understand that everyone can be injured and the possibility of failure is not low (perhaps they are the ones who understand better). However, compared to the year-based system, this attempt at least promises a little chance of success. I must also make it clear that the stagnation of the academic year system does not come from the nature of this training system itself (many places still maintain this old training system, for example, Oxford), but from the fact that no one is willing to face the change until forced. Therefore, like most development milestones in Vietnam, the change here is not evolutionary but, unfortunately, revolutionary. It is this revolutionary nature that reveals many unavoidable shortcomings of the transition process, such as lack of preparation, conflicts of interests and, sometimes, rashness. However, I believe that the transition is not fundamentally a failure. Based on the above support, I would like to make a few comments during this discussion. Although my opinions may be superficial, straightforward and sometimes pessimistic, they all come from a desire for positive and profound change in this school. As an assistant in compiling the credit program framework of the Faculty, I think that we (I only dare to talk about the case of my faculty) have missed a valuable opportunity to reform our own curriculum. Due to limitations in capacity and human resources, the work of compiling the curriculum framework that I was in charge of was basically just a horizontal transfer. Specifically, we have: - Instead of a suitable complementarity between theory and practice in the curriculum structure, we have only achieved a loose combination of modules, where theory is not strong enough to become the foundation for practice, and therefore, the meaning of both is significantly reduced. - Ignored the opportunity to separate the curriculum framework into different majors, to maximize the ability to arrange the modules, in order to save teaching and learning effort for both lecturers and students.
As an assistant in compiling the credit program framework of the Faculty, I think that we (I only dare to talk about the case of my faculty) have missed a valuable opportunity to reform our own curriculum.
There are many reasons for this mistake and perhaps it is not worth discussing here. I just want to make a request that after several years of practicing credits, perhaps it is time for us to absorb the good and bad points of the credit system and realize the mistakes we have made. This is the time when we need an opportunity to revise the program framework accordingly. As an academic advisor, I see the following urgent issues: - Firstly, it is impossible to advise students on the basis of an unreasonable curriculum. For example, many students ask me: "I want to become a TV reporter, so how should I design my curriculum?". Of course, I can only answer: "Dear, you just study all the subjects of print journalism, photo journalism, radio journalism, PR, advertising. Because our Faculty does not divide into majors, you just keep your own wishes, and you still have to study everything, there is no way to tailor a program for you." Obviously, this answer proves that the modularization of subjects has not achieved its meaning. From this answer, I think that the creation of narrow majors in the Faculty is inevitable and extremely effective for the development strategy of the Faculty. - Second, as long as the advisory work only stops at technical advisory, it is difficult to achieve effectiveness. The academic advisory work must first be advising on learning strategies (which, as presented, I have not been very effective because the program is not reasonable), and then, advising on learning attitudes. Current students (based on the students of the Faculty of Journalism that I know) have a surprisingly sloppy and lazy learning attitude. That is most likely due to the fragmentation of the module system, because during the school year, I found the learning spirit to be more positive. This disconnection needs to be filled in some way (I haven’t thought of any yet, but I just do it spontaneously by talking often, sharing feelings, and urging students to study – which is very tiring, hard work without any pay). We have to find a way to connect the spirit of studying for students.
… after several years of practicing credits, perhaps it is time for us to absorb the good and bad points of the credit system, and realize the mistakes we have made. This is the time we need an opportunity to re-edit the program framework to make it suitable.
As a lecturer, I think: - The students' self-study level is too poor because the theoretical system and research methods that we provide to them (in the case of the Faculty of Journalism) are too dogmatic. That should be called theory, not theory. Therefore, the knowledge system that students acquire is a closed system, unable to open up and self-acquire new things. It also closes the students' need to ask questions and criticize. This, once again, comes from the unreasonable curriculum. It is available from the year system, but when it comes to the credit system, it is very clearly revealed. - Our learning materials system is too poor. Students do not have a large enough library, and there are no significant books in the library. I would like to note that the learning materials that teachers provide are completely different from popular learning materials, because only learning materials popularized by the library system make reading mandatory and vital for the learning process. The fact that teachers are the only ones who can provide learning materials makes them authoritarian and one-sided, as if they are the only source of knowledge. This clearly narrows the students' ability to take control of their own learning process as well as stunts their ability to criticize and question (because teachers are the ones who impose the source of books). The above are my contributions drawn from a few years of experience working with this training system. There are countless other issues that I still cherish, but considering the chaos that our school is facing in this change, I think the above basic points are enough. Thank you very much.
