Vietnam's education sector must improve the standards through better management, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan said on July 29 at a meeting in Hanoi.

In the 2009-10 academic year, 92.57% of high school students passed the graduation exam – 8.97% higher than in the previous school year.

Deputy PM Nhan attributed the improvement to management programmes that had been introduced in the academic year.

High school principals around the country underwent re-training courses that focused on leadership, while education managers learned how to adapt to being financially independent.

They were also told how to best promote their school's achievements in terms of training quality, finance, infrastructure facilities and teaching/learning conditions.

Deputy PM Nhan said the Ministry of Education and Training should continue to implement programmes designed to boost educational management.

He said the focus should be on implementing new programmes for pre-schools that include a combination of different teaching methods, the application of e-learning, extra-training for students who are performing badly and boosting the management skills of staff.

Nhan also urged the ministry to work with provincial authorities on developing schools for gifted students to provide high-quality human resources for the country's development, and said greater emphasis should be placed on learning foreign-languages

Education and Training Deputy Minister Nguyen Vinh Hien said at the meeting that up to 96.4% of pre-schools now apply information technology, while 82.8% are connected to the internet.

Secondary schools now meet universal standards, while more than half of all pre-schools have adopted educational programmes.

However, despite improvements in education, Hien said schools had yet to meet the demand required for national development demand. He also said there was a teacher shortage, a lack of infrastructure, a high drop-out rate and too much emphasis placed on passive learning. (VNA)