In Vietnam, a Program Works toward Schools Free of Violence

Addressing a Save the Children’s workshop in Ho Chi Minh City, Minh Trang, a teacher in Vo Gap district, drew attendants’ attention with her own story.

“I had never believed in soft discipline on students. I used to see those naïve faces engulfed in fear,” said Trang, who used to work as a teacher of geography and now serves as the deputy principal at Nguyen Van Troi secondary school. “My students later said the image of me with a long, thick stick had dented in their minds.”

Trang referred to the teacher training courses organized by Save the Children that she took a turning point where her education philosophy and methods completely changed. The courses provided training in child-focused methodology and designing interactive and engaging syllabi. Trang’s school was one of the eight project schools in Go Vap district that benefited from the program.

“Beyond my expectation, my students became much more confident and independent,” Trang said. “My students came to me for advice and sympathy when they ran into problems.”

Using violence as means to foster discipline on children is a common practice in Vietnam, as a result of a conservative tradition and the limited awareness of a child’s rights. The program’s preliminary assessment has reaffirmed the underestimation of children’s psychological well-being and their poor access to support services.

The project, supported by IKEA Foundation, worked to improve the quality of child protection and education in Ho Chi Minh City, particularly that for marginalized children. Officially known as “Improved Protection and Quality Education for Migrant and other Marginalized and Vulnerable Children in Ho Chi Minh City,” the program was implemented in eight schools in the two districts of Go Vap and Cu Chi.

The program’s courses provided training to teachers about positive discipline techniques in which the teachers obtained new class-management methods and were instructed to create a child-friendly learning environment. Teachers have been applying what they’ve learned, including decorating classes and striving to engage students in classes.

Ho Chi Minh City is home to an estimated 300,000 migrant children, who, without proper registration, are vulnerable to discrimination, neglect and lack access to quality education and protection services. Besides, it has more than 70,000 children living in special circumstances such as children with disabilities, orphans, children affected by HIV/AIDS, street children, according to the city’s Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

In the case of Cu Chi and Go Vap districts which are rural areas and home to immigrants, children had even a smaller chance to enjoying a child-friendly learning environment.

Program staffs worked to engage everyone around a child - teachers, parents and children themselves - in abandoning corporal punishment. Community boards and school managers were also educated about the negative impacts of corporal punishment. Teachers and parents were asked to sign in posters saying “Stop abuse and physical violence against children” which were later presented in the classroom as a reminder for the teachers and to inform the children of their rights.

The program also introduced the child-centred method for assessing a class’s success. Teachers move to assess the success of a colleague’s class by observing the children’s learning, happiness and level of participation instead of giving peer review. Peers would sit around the classroom and observe, then give suggestions on how to better engage the students.  This method saves the teacher from criticism and a feeling of low self-esteem, which is very helpful in Vietnam’s “saving face” culture. Having recognized the benefits that this method brought to our 16 piloting schools, the government has decided to introduce it to all the primary schools in HCMC. This will translate to more than 1,000 schools starting to use this method this school year.

Besides working with schools, Save the Children, in cooperation with Go Vap’s and Cu Chi’s local authorities, distributed Good Parenting IEC materials in order to raise awareness among the community.

In its first phase from 2013 to early this year, the project supported approximately 2,000 marginalized and disadvantaged children including 500 minors living in Buddhist Association institutions and hundreds of educators and caregivers. Another 10,000 school children and their families got indirect benefits from the program. 

Article by Ha An and Quang Nguyen