Thechronicle of higher education

Under the decision which took effect on February 9, Korean and German are defined as “first foreign languages”.

The Ministry said Korean language would be taught from the third to 12th grades. The pilot teaching will be implemented in areas with high demand which have necessary conditions in terms of teachers and material facilities.

Nguyen Xuan Thanh from MOET on March 4 stressed that under the decision, Korean has become one of the first foreign languages on a trial basis. The curriculum for teaching Korean as a second foreign language has already been released.

Thanh said this doesn’t mean that Korean will be a compulsory subject for all students. The phrase here is just used to modify the phrase ‘first foreign language’. This means that each student has to study one first foreign language and can choose among the first foreign languages listed by MOET.

According to an education expert, there are three categories related to subjects – compulsory subjects, selective subjects and elective/optional subjects.

With ‘selective subjects’, there are many choices for students. Optional subjects are not mandatory and students can register to study the subjects if they want.

In the case of the Korean language, it should be referred to as a selective subject.

He said integrating Korean and German into the national education syllabus is a normal occurence and this will benefit students.

The subject will help develop the ability of communicating in Korean language. It will also help students with skills in studying foreign languages in general, thus satisfying requirements for labor force quality.

Under the decision, students will reach the first level when finishing the sixth grade, the second level when finishing the 9th grade and third level when finishing the 12th grade after having 1,155 learning periods (45 minutes for each period).

The teaching of foreign languages at general schools has been implemented for many years. First foreign languages, the selective subjects, include English, French, Chinese, Russian and Japanese. Foreign second languages that are optional subjects include Korean and German.

After a period of teaching Korean and German on a trial basis in some localities, MOET realized that there was increasingly high demand from students.

The decision is keeping with the agreements signed between Vietnam and the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Germany on teaching their languages at Vietnamese schools.

Thanh Hung

Phuong Hoai Nga, MA in Psychology, from The Olympia Schools, said that parents are worrief about online teaching because they don’t have confidence in the teaching method.

In fact, any form of teaching would be ineffective if three subjects of the process – students, parents and teachers – don’t have common purposes.

Parents think their children cannot concentrate during online lessons. But in fact, they may lose concentration even in offline classes.

Nga, though understanding parents’ worries, still believes that it is necessary to popularize online teaching, which is a growing tendency in the world, instead of discontinuing it when the pandemic is contained.

“Why don’t we teach and study online if parents have necessary conditions to support their children, teachers are capable of shifting to the new teaching method, and students are used to the new style of interactions,” she said.

Teachers need training

Chu Cam Tho from the Vietnam Academy of Education Science said that to teach/study online effectively, students need to be more responsible, while teachers need to be trained so that they can use technology and also change the way of organizing and providing documents.

Studies recommend that the content for online teaching needs to be designed to fit students’ ability to absorb knowledge and their learning style. It is necessary to provide reasonable doses of knowledge. There should not be interactions lasting more than 15 minutes on computer for each dose, and one online lesson should not last more than 90 minutes.

Online teaching: long-term solution

Deputy Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Huu Do said Vietnam organized online teaching as a temporary solution during the pandemic, but with the outstanding advantages of this teaching method, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) is considering make online teaching a long-term solution, which can be supplementary to in-person teaching or replace it.

Do went on to say that MOET is building and supplementing the e-lesson plan system for different education levels, which could be used by schools, teachers and students for the long term.

Hoa Mo

Juventus’ Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo (C) celebrates with Juventus’ Swedish forward Dejan Kulusevski (L) and Juventus’ Turkish defender Merih Demiral after scoring his second goal during the Italian Serie A football match Juventus vs Crotone on February 22, 2021 at the Juventus stadium in Turin.(Marco BERTORELLO / AFP)

The latest figures compare to losses of 50.3 million euros in the first half of the club’s 2019/20 financial year, which runs from July 1 to June 30.

“The first half of the 2020/2021 financial year was heavily penalised by the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic and the consequent restrictive measures imposed by the authorities,” Juventus said of a season played with matches behind closed doors.

“The pandemic directly and significantly affected, above all, ticket sales and sales of products and licenses, with a consequent negative impact on operating income, net income and financial debt.”

The club had reported losses of 89.7 million euros for the year 2019/2020.

Juventus noted the “positive trend of revenues from sponsorships and advertising” which were slightly higher than the previous year.

“These negative effects were partly offset by higher revenues from radio and television rights.”

E-commerce figures also grew by 60 percent to offset the decline in revenues from physical retail stores.

Juventus won a ninth consecutive league title last season but failed to advance past the Champions League last 16.

AFP

Authored by Vietnamese Ambassador to Russia Ngo Duc Manh, the book is divided in five chapters providing a brief introduction to Vietnam and Russia; President Ho Chi Minh, who laid the foundation for the establishment of the bilateral ties; the relations between Vietnam and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in the 1950-1990 period; the Vietnam – Russia ties during the 1991-2011 period; and from 2011 until now.

The publication features more than 700 photos and documents on the bilateral cooperation across the vast fields of politics, economics, defence-security, culture, education, science-technology, and people-to-people diplomacy.

The book also quotes opinions and memories of leaders, researchers, and historical witnesses from the two countries.

Speaking at the ceremony, Ambassador Ngo Duc Manh said that he came up with the idea of penning a book on the great friendship between Vietnam and Russia quite a long time ago, with the aim of further promoting the special bilateral relationship.

He expressed his thanks to leaders, archives, press agencies, individuals and friends from the two countries for their enthusiastic support and comments in compiling the publication.

In the introduction of the book, Politburo member, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh stated that with an abundance of information and data, the book chronicles the 70-year history of Vietnam – Russia ties as well as the effective, comprehensive and deep cooperation between the two countries in various fields.

For her part, Chairwoman of the Russian Federation Council V. Matviyenko appreciated that Ambassador Manh’s book includes many notable documents on the establishment and development of Russia – Vietnam cooperation.

She also reaffirmed that Russia and Vietnam are determined to further develop the bilateral ties under the spirit of friendship, mutual trust, and respect for each other’s interests.

Book chronicling 70 years of Vietnam-Russia ties launched

HoSE considers suspending amendment and cancellation orders while trading

The proportion of amendment and cancellation orders has tended to increase. If these orders are stopped, the liquidity on HoSE will be eased by 30 per cent. This solution can be implemented immediately without any technical intervention, said HoSE.

HoSE said that this solution had certain impacts on investors’ behaviour as they will consider carefully before placing buy and sell orders. Algorithmic trading orders will be harder to execute due to the higher risk. At the same time, split spread orders will also be reduced.

However, according to the general manager of a securities company, the suspension of cancellation and amendment orders can be applied theoretically, but in terms of service and experience, it will not be really applicable.

“Even at banks, when customers write incorrect payment orders, they can still leave and re-correct,” he said.

An individual investor said that in case this solution is applied, if the order is placed wrongly, trading may become troublesome because it cannot be modified.

“We have to watch the electronic board all day if we want to trade because it is impossible to predict market movements during the session,” he said.

HoSE said it would listen to all feedback from investors regarding this new solution.

According to HoSE, in January 2020, the total number of amendment and cancellation orders on the bourse reached nearly 770,000 out of a total of more than 2.7 million orders, equivalent to an average of more than 45,000 cancel orders among over 160,900 orders per day.

Thus, the number of amendment and cancellation orders accounted for more than 28 per cent of the total trading orders. The number of trading days per month fluctuates from 15 to 23 depending on national holidays.

In June 2020, there were nearly 2.6 million amendment and cancellation orders out of a total 8.4 million transaction orders, accounting for 31 per cent.

In December 2020, the number of amendment and cancellation orders soared to nearly 4.4 million out of a total 13.9 million transaction orders, accounting for 31.76 per cent.

In February this year, although there were only 15 trading sessions, there were still more than 3 million amendment and cancellation orders, out of a total of nearly 9.1 million transaction orders, accounting for 33.05 per cent.

System overloads took place before and after the Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday when liquidity suddenly increased to about VND14-17 trillion (US$600-$730 million) per session, affecting many investors’ trading.

The sudden increase in liquidity recently is unpredictable, causing undesired interruptions in trading, said Le Hai Tra, Chairman of the Board of Members of HoSE.

To tackle this issue, the State Securities Commission said it was speeding up the implementation of a new information technology system for the entire stock market, known as KRX.

However, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the implementation of the new system was delayed and if the disease progresses, it will be difficult to continue the plan.

In another move to ease system overload, the State Securities Commission has instructed the transfer of transactions of listed shares from the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange to the Ha Noi Stock Exchange.

However, so far, no companies listed on HoSE have volunteered to switch trading to the HNX.

VNS