Life skills education for primary school students of ethnic minorities in the northern mountainous region of Vietnam: From teachers’ points of view

Nguyen Thi Thu Hang

Nguyen Thi Thu Hang	hangntt@tnue.edu.vn	Thai Nguyen University of Education

Summary:

Primary school students of ethnic minorities in the northern mountainous region of Vietnam have unfavorable economic and social conditions, which has a huge impact on the quality of education in these areas, especially life skills education. Based on this proposition, the author has identified teachers’ viewpoints on the need of educating life skills for this target group of students and difficulties in implementing life skills education. Survey tools used in this research include questionnaires and interviews, direct observation with 218 teachers in Thai Nguyen, Bac Kan, Ha Giang, Cao Bang, Lang Son, Dien Bien, and Lai Chau provinces. The survey results show that most teachers are aware of the need to implement life skills education and have regularly implemented life skills education for ethnic minority primary school students in the northern mountainous areas, albeit with limited effectiveness. At the same time, the study also shows that the main difficulty preventing teachers in this area from implementing life skills education for students is that students’ parents are unaware of the role of life skills education and that schools focus too much on teaching the Vietnamese language and Mathematics to students, so they have not paid enough attention to the methods and forms of organizing life skills education. From this research, we propose a group of measures to organize and replicate the topics on life skills education for teachers in the regions to raise awareness about the use of diverse methods and forms of organizing life skills education in daily teaching activities. In addition, we also propose groups of measures to promote coordination between schools, families and social communities to raise awareness about the role of life skills education for ethnic minority students in the northern mountainous areas of Vietnam.

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Keywords:

Teachers

life skills education

Primary School Students

Ethnic minorities

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Journal:

Volume. 16 - issue 2 / 2020

VIETNAM JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES

Life skills education for primary school students of ethnic minorities in the northern mountainous region of Vietnam: From teachers’ points of view