Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam should learn from advanced early childhood educationmodels of foreign countries and apply best practices in order to achieve itsset target in developing pre-school education, heard an international workshopin Hanoi on October 11.

Prof. Dr. Tran Cong Phong, Director of the Vietnam Institute of EducationSciences (VIES), told the workshop, themed “Initiatives to improve quality ofearly childhood education in Vietnam,” that the institute joined hands with NewZealand’s Waikato University and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to hold theevent with the aim of discovering new ideas in the field.

Delegatesat the workshop focused on policies supporting early childhood education andthe renovation of contents and methods of child care, education and assessment.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Ba Minh, head of the Pre-school Education Departmentunder the Ministry of Education and Training, said that universal pre-schooleducation for five-year-old children has been prescribed in the 2009 EducationLaw, marking a major transformation of Vietnam’s early childhood education overthe past 70 years.

The Prime Minister also approved a project on universal pre-school educationfor five-year-old children during 2010-2015, he said, adding that the implementationof  the project over the past six yearshas impacted greatly on the development of the sector.

As of April this year, the country fulfilled thegoal of giving all five-year-old children access to pre-school education.

Minh, however, pointed out remarkable gap in pre-school education betweenregions in Vietnam, as reflected through the shortage of classrooms, materialfacilities and teachers in disadvantaged localities, including the northern,central and south central mountainous areas, and industrial parks.

The building of pre-school curriculums was also an item on the workshop’sagenda. -VNA