Improving quality in health education through multigrade teaching in Viet Nam

Viet Nam achieved Universal Primary Education (UPE) in 2000 with the help of an expanded multigrade teaching system in primary schools. Since then the government has focused on the quality of primary education. What lessons can be learned from a project aimed at improving the quality of health education at multigrade schools?

Viet Nam has large areas of mountainous highlands withmany isolated communities of ethnic minority groups. While compulsory primaryschooling reached UPE, a 70 percent enrolment, educational efficiency (at 70percent) is not high. The government launched the National Primary Curriculum in2000 to try to improve the quality of education. The curriculum includes healtheducation, which aims to teach basic knowledge about health, nutrition and theenvironment. In 1991 the Ministry of Education and Training and UNICEF launchedthe Multigrade Teaching Project, setting up a network of multigrade classes inremote areas.

A study by the LondonInstitute of Education in the UK and Hanoi University of Education in Viet Nam aims to improve understanding of howhealth education is being taught in multigrade classes in northern Viet Nam, and to help develop a more effectiveapproach for teaching. It finds that teachers generally teach a subject thatrequires intense teacher input (such as maths) to one grade group, while theother grade groups carry on with subjects needing only light teacher input. Formost subjects, teachers teach each grade separately yet at the same time,spending about five minutes with a grade group before moving to the next group.Teaching is strongly teacher led and controlled and involves passive learning.

Based on theseobservations, the researchers then set up an action research project inpartnership with multigrade teachers in Bacgiang Province to encourage an immediate improvement intheir practice. This involves the teachers using an enquiry-based approach tolearning and teaching a variety of student groupings, starting with the wholeclass and then breaking into small groups within grades or mixed-grade groups.They aim to encourage active and collaborative learning.

The followingfindings are reported:

• A‘before’ and ‘after’ knowledge test shows the new teaching approach is moreeffective in terms of knowledge gained by the students compared with those inthe control group.
• Teachersreport that the pupils enjoy working on tasks collaboratively in groups andthis stimulates them to share ideas and boosts confidence and feelings ofself-worth.
• Teachersfind the new method helps them to manage multigrade classes more easily.

The studydemonstrates that action research can be successfully used to help multigradeteachers improve the quality of health education teaching and learning inremote, disadvantaged areas of Viet Nam. This has a number of implications for moreeffective teacher training:

• TheMinistry of Education and Training acknowledges the need for multigradeteachers to be given more flexibility in teaching the curriculum but it needsto actively raise awareness of this policy and sensitise teachers and educationofficers to the degree of flexibility allowed.
• Curriculumdevelopers need to work with teachers to make multigrade teaching easier by presentingthe curriculum in a more user-friendly format, by improving training andteacher support, and by producing more interactive and flexible learningmaterials.