THE Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved a long-term foreign languages training project that aims at promoting students’ major international languages fluency by the year 2020, the Viet Nam News has reported.
The VND16 trillion ($970 million) project, to be implemented by the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training, is part of efforts to prepare Vietnamese young people to meet the demands of increasing global integration. The project calls for increased proficiency in a second language by 2015 and full second language fluency by all students by 2020.
Under the plan, English will become a compulsory course for all students from primary to university level by 2020. All university students will be required to take courses in another language — Mandarin Chinese, Russian or French.
According to the ministry, poor equipment and outdated methodology used in Vietnamese schools have hindered progress in second language proficiency. Therefore, all schools in the country will be equipped with multimedia labs and other facilities by 2015 to provide quality training in foreign languages.
The project also calls for teacher training in and outside Vietnam. All foreign language educators at the college and university level and some high schools as well as vocational training teachers will be trained abroad. Building and developing new centers for training foreign language teachers is essential, the ministry said.
Ministry officials have also urged universities and schools to work with foreign partners and organizations as well as volunteer groups whose native languages are English, Russian, French or Chinese.
