Hanoi National University of Education (HNUE) along with ten other universities and three teacher training colleges in Vietnam participated in the UNESCO Bangkok Curriculum Development Workshop. Thirty-six participants, mostly senior faculty members, received intensive training for five days, where they reviewed and updated ICT-related courses in their existing teacher education curricula.
The workshop proved successful and highly relevant. Attendants agreed that it was useful and met most of their expectations. Several participants said they learned the “principles, models and steps to build an ICT-integrated curriculum” and the “relationship of technical skills, content and pedagogy in the curriculum development process”. For others, they have found the “roads to integrate ICT into the curriculum” or “how to develop the next generation curriculum”.
The Curriculum Development Workshop was held last 14-18 June 2010 at the HNUE Campus in Hanoi, Vietnam. Collaboration between UNESCO Bangkok and Hanoi offices, and HNUE officials made this workshop possible. Also, VVOB Vietnam, an international NGO working in the areas of ICT and teacher education, sponsored the participation of additional participants including translators while Intel Vietnam and the Ministry of Education and Training gave interesting presentations to update the participants on existing initiatives in ICT in teacher training.
The workshop is merely the first step to develop the next generation of teachers in Vietnam. The institutions present in the workshops still need to make a decision on whether to revise their curriculum. More training is also required for faculty to better deliver the ICT-related courses. UNESCO, VVOB and Intel will continue to assist these institutions in achieving this objective.
The Next Generation of Teachers (Next Gen) project, supported by the Japanese-Funds-In-Trust (JFIT), builds the institutional capacity of teacher education institutions (TEIs) in the Asia-Pacific region. Participating TEIs benefit from three key activities of the Next Gen project. These are i) Deans’ Forum; ii) ICT-Pedagogy Integration Workshops; and iii) Curriculum Development Workshops. For more information and updates, visit http://www.unescobkk.org/education/ict/teachertraining/next_gen or e-mail Benjamin Vergel de Dios, b.vergeldedios[at]unesco.org
