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European Journal of Education Studies ISSN: 2501 - 1111 ISSN-L: 2501 - 1111 Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/edu doi: 10.5281/zenodo.1127790 Volume 3 │ Issue 12 │ 2017 TRANSFORMING EDUCATION IN CENTRAL VIETNAM BY INTEGRATED CURRICULUM APPROACH: FROM INITIATIVES TO SUSTAINABILITY Thi Kinh Kieui, Van Minh Vo The University of Danang, University of Education, Vietnam Abstract: Global changes pose an urgent demand to education that produces citizens with relevant competences to deal with a complex world. By creating connection among different disciplines and connection between lessons and real life, integrated curriculum has been pondered to be an appropriate approach to transform education. In Vietnam, though integrated education concept had been introduced since early 2000s and promoted by the government recently, it remains a new concept to many school teachers. 76% of interviewed teachers claimed that integrated curriculum was indispensable trend of education but only 26% of them practiced IC. Based on the study results, several solutions were proposed to motivate integrated education in Vietnam and those can also be applied in other developing countries Keywords: integrated curriculum, teachers, reform, collaboration, Vietnam 1. Background It is widely recognized that humans learn through creating connections and all the things in reality depend upon each other. Educators thus must teach through connections, not fragmentations, of knowledge (Burns & Sattes, 1995) as life is not divided different subjects (James Moi, 1992). Therefore, since the early of the 20 th century, integrated curriculum has been considered as the most effective approach to reform the conventional teaching and learning in many countries, including Asian Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved. © 2015 – 2017 Open Access Publishing Group 370 Thi Kinh Kieu, Van Minh Vo TRANSFORMING EDUCATION IN CENTRAL VIETNAM BY INTEGRATED CURRICULUM APPROACH: FROM INITIATIVES TO SUSTAINABILITY countries where Confucian system had been predominantly influenced for a long time. Singapore and Japan are among the leading countries that promote integrated approach to improve their education system to provide the citizens to meet the demand of globalization (Reza, 2008; Tan, 2008). Integrated education is widely accepted by the educators, educational policy makers and scholars yet to apply it remains facing innumerous challenges, particularly in developing countries where education system is still lag behind. This paper will firstly present the difficulties in implementation of integrated education through investigation in Central Vietnam. Then, the paper will draw some lessons-learned by examining two initiatives of integrated curriculum (IC) and interviewing teachers before it proposes solutions to mainstream and sustain IC that can be referenced in similar developing countries. For viewing / downloading the full article, please access the following link: https://oapub.org/edu/index.php/ejes/article/view/1316 European Journal of Education Studies - Volume 3 │ Issue 12 │ 2017 371