Linking the school, family and society in enhancing the moral education program for high school students in hanoi

Thainguyen University Vietnam Southern Luzon University Philippines DEM Candidate Hoang Hong Trang LINKING THE SCHOOL, FAMILY AND SOCIETY IN ENHANCING THE MORAL EDUCATION PROGRAM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN HANOI EDUCATION MANAGEMENT DOCTORAL DISSERTATION SUMMARY April, 2014 Research has been conducted in: INTERNATIONAL TRAINING CENTER (ITC), THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Academic supervisor: Prof Dr TERESITA V DELA CRUZ Reviewer 1:…………………………………………… Reviewer 2:…………………………………………… Reviewer 3:…………………………………………… The PhD dessertation was defended at Thai Nguyen University Academic Assessment Board Venue: …………………………………………… Time period (dd/mm/yy): ……………………… The dissertation has been stored in: - Vietnam national library - Learning resource center, Thai Nguyen University - Library at Interntional Training Center - Library at Southern Luzon University, Phillipin CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY Moral education plays an important role in fostering human behaviour Realizing this issue, the moral education has been paid due attention and gained a lot of achievement in the past years in the whole national education system However, in the process of social development, globalization and integration the moral education program has recently revealed some limitation and weak points related to the content, teaching methods, the training of subject teachers…Moreover, a part of students especially high school students (aged 16-18) are showing the moral degradation, even violating the law This worries not only the administrators, teachers, parents, but students as well In some dialogues between students and school leaders, many students frankly pointed out the weakness of the moral education in school such as the content, the teaching method, the assessment… They suggested moral education would fulfil its role: To train and educate students to become citizens with good behaviour and good value (http://dantri.com.vn/giao-duc-khuyenhoc/dao-duc-sao-lai-hoc-thuoc-cham-diem-853058.htm) During a visit to the Educational Department of HoChiMinh city on the occasion of the Vietnamese teacher’s day, the Vice president of Vietnam, madam Nguyen Thi Doan expressed the worries and concerns about the moral education now She reminded the school of improving the moral education program and at the same time combining the textbooks content with other subjects, paying attention to extra curriculum activities for students ((http:/vnexpress.net/detail/print?id=2912608&page=1) According to mass media, the Ministry of Education and Training has plans to organize conference and seminars on the moral education at national level so that they can have ground for the improvement and renovation for the program From the direction by the state leaders, the worries / concerns of the schools and society, the suggestion by the students, the plan of renovation of MOET and the demand by the social development, the integration and globalization, there must be more studies on moral education and solution as well With these main reasons, we have decided to choose the topic: “Linking the school, family and society in enhancing the moral education program for high school students in HaNoi.” for the study THE OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY We have set out objectives for the study: Assess the status of Moral education in high schools in Hanoi; Find out how important the linkage between the school with the family and society and current status of the linkage; Suggest a moral education program with extracurriculum activities to link the school family and society together To achieve these objectives, we try to answer the following questions: How is the current status of moral education in high school and what are the standards/criteria used to evaluate the morality of high school students? What are the factors influencing the formation of personality and moral model of high school students in Hanoi? 3 Why the school, family and the society have to work together in moral education for high school students in Hanoi? Is the linkage among the school with the family and society in moral education for high school students in Hanoi feasible and effective? And how is it done? What are the solutions for the school, family and society to set up and enhance the linkage in moral education for high school students in Hanoi? In the study, we did not answer these questions saperately, but as a whole through all chapters, paying more attention to the questions directly related to extra- curriculum activities for students RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS Linking the school, family and society in the implementation of moral education has a positive impact on improving the quality of moral education for students (In the case of high school students in HaNoi) SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY To some extent, the study has certain significance on the school, the family, social organization, students, teachers, managers and officials… SCOPE OF THE STUDY We have invited 485 people to participante in the study with survey questionnaire then we have collected the ideas, response, comment from them They are educational managers, teachers, students, parents, government officials, social activist…and the study was conducted at 10 high schools in HaNoi As for the linkage of with the society, we just focus on the role, the responsibilities of some major social organizations (Youth Union, Women’s Union, Trade Union, Professional associations), Social Functions (Festival, Entertainment, Sport and cultural events) and some other offices most related to the educating young generation (office of police, justice, mass media…) METHOD FOR DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES - Interview; - Survey/ Evaluation questionnaires; - Seminar/ Meetings with related people CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, we presented some issues related to literature review, the content and objectives of moral education, the significance of the linkage between the school with the family and society in the implementation of moral education 2.1 Some basic categories, concept of morals: In this part, we dealt with some basic concepts in connection with the content of study: Concept of morals, basic content of morals and the positive behaviors, the process of moral education The process of moral education consists of different factors: Subjective, Objective, in and out school…These factors if properly combined will certainly improve the quality of moral education at school According to Associate Professor – Dr Pham Viet Vuong “Moral education is the process that has the impact on students to form their ideal, emotion and moral belief and the ultimate goal is to create the habit of ethical behavior "(Pham Viet Vuong, 2008, State Administration and Management of Education and Training sector Pedagogical University Publishing House, Hanoi) 5 According to Professor – Dr Ha Nhat Thang "Educating the humanistic moral value system is a process of organizing educational activities in many ways, many measures to help people understand the standard moral system that suit the demand of the social development and to help people in self-assessment, having the need to carry out those standards This value system orients and regulates the behavior of people, because education with self positive activities, people increasingly understand the role of the sense of conscience, individual honor and personal ethics in public, and they train themselves towards the true value, make the standard moral system from the external into the internal demands such as individual belief, need, and habit of the educated person" (HaNhatThang (9/96 page 8) Home-teacher with managing the education of the high school students in new condition) The concept of management, enhancement, linkage and some related issues The concepts and issues serve as strong ground for the research process and the solution in the study 2.2 Objectives of high school education and moral education for students According to the Education Law 2005, amended in 2009: "The objectives of high school education is to help students develop a comprehensive moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic quality, and basic skills to form a Vietnamese socialist person, shaping civic status and responsibility, preparing for students’ further education or working life, participating in the developing and protecting mission of the country" The objectives of moral education is to help individuals realize the true moral values, to know how to behave by justice and humanity, to live for people, for families, for the advancement of the society and the prosperity of the country The most important purpose of moral education is to create the habit of ethical behavior The above objectives has been affirmed in the education law that: "it is to help students develop comprehensively morals, intellectual, aesthetics and basic skills aimed at the formation of the Vietnamese people" 2.3 Research paradigm Schematic of independent variables, dependent variables and the result of the study Independent variables Dependent variables - Goal for general education and orientations for moral education - Psycho physiological characteristics of high school students - Factors affecting the efficiency of organizing the coordinating between the school with the family and society in moral education Quality of moral education for high school students Solutions for linking the school, family and society in enhancing the implementation of moral education for high school students CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research method In the study, we have used groups of methods: - Theoretical research methods including the document study, canonical document study, subject related books, newspaper… - Practical research methods including observation, survey questionnaires 3.2 Participants and location of the study 485 people including educational administrator, manager, teachers, students, parents, government officials, social activist were invited to give their comment or answer to the survey questionairs and the study was conducted at 10 high schools in Hanoi 3.3 Data collection To have information and data for the study, we have designed a set of survey questionnaires with 30 questions and statements related to the most common issues of moral education Then we sent to 485 participants After some time, we have got back answers from 462 participants Among these participants, 455 of them gave answers or comments to all questions/ statement and we analyzed the data on the basic of answers/ comments from 455 participants Together with the survey questionnaires, we also referred to the results of moral ranking of students at 10 high schools in school years (2009-2012) and met, interviewed with other people for more information for study To make our suggestion more convincing, we also referred to and exploited other information related to geography, economy, culture of Hanoi and the current status of linkage between school with the family and society in other schools nearby With above information, the analysis of the data collected, we have got rather enough materials to assess the current status of moral education and suggest possible measure for the improvement of moral education, first of all, for high school students 3.4 Statistical treatment From statistical treatment, we have used the following formula: WM  Where:  fw n WM = weighted mean  fw = sum of the product of the frequency and weight n = total number CHAPTER IV RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Status of moral education 4.1.1 Evaluating the effectiveness of moral education in schools According to the results of moral ranking of students in some high schools in Hanoi, we see that most of students were ranked as “Good”, but there is a slight decrease of “Good students” in recent years, whereas the number of “Bad students” is rather small, but it tends to increase year after year The increase and decrease of “Bad and Good students” has a strong connection with the levels in which students are The higher level they are in, the number of “Good students” decreases and the number of “Bad students” rises This phenomenon showed that the implementation of education is not stable, the moral education program is not quite effective and the method of teaching moral education doesn’t really influence the students in fostering their behavior In school, the subject of moral education is regarded as a complementary subject, much less important than the other subjects, students feel “compulsory” to learn this subject At home, many families not pay enough attention to their children, they think that moral education is the responsibilities of the school only This led to the misbehavior and misconduct of the students Many of them disobey their parents, fighting each other in the street, violating the law, even committing crimes Through these facts, we can come to the conclusion that the moral education program has got a lot of success and achievements in the past years, but it also leaves much to be desired in terms of content, methods, assessment etc…Therefore it needs improving so that it will be more effective and more stable 4.1.2 Assessment of moral education at school In order to have better understanding of moral education status we have designed a set of survey questionnaires and then sent to the interested people for comment and suggestion to improve the effectiveness of moral education for students in school The survey questionnaires with 30 questions/ statement focus on the following issues: The status of moral education in high school; The curriculum framework for moral education in high school; The implementation/ teaching resources and assessment; The effect of extra curriculum activities in the implementation of moral education for high school students; The linkage of the school with the family and society in moral education and how to better link them together We sent the survey questionnaires to 485 people and got back answers from 455 people with full response to all questions/statement, among these 455 people, we have 62 parents, 108 teachers, 32 education managers, 55 government officials, 150 students, 38 social activists, 299 of them are male and 226 are female These people are of different background, different ages and of course different jobs It is interesting to note that one person may be a father and 10 teacher as well, or another person may be a manager and at the same time a mother of a high school student, therefore they can give suggestion and comment from different roles This helped us to have broader and also deeper analysis of the current status of moral education now In our research, we always got positive support from people of different sectors This confirmed the fact that the moral education has always been a big concern of society and that the moral degradation of the students must be seriously taken into consideration The content in survey questionnaires is about the most common issues of moral education, that’s why all participants could answer these questions or provided the information based on their point of view, their understanding, their generation Each question or statement has options: Strongly Agree (SAWM 3.51- 4.00), Agree (A- WM 2.51- 3.50), Disagree (D- WM 1.512.50), Strongly Disagree (SD- WM 1.00- 1.50) We sent out 488 sets of questionnaire and then got back 642 sets but of them did not provide enough necessary information so we got 455 people with full answers for all questions/statements in the survey Based on the information from 455 participants, we have made careful analysis and had the remarks as follows: The role of moral education in school The comments related to the role of moral education are divided among the participants Though WM: 2.53 showed that just more than half agreed with the statement, whereas nearly half of them disagreed that the moral education has been given due attention in all school, on the contrary the moral education should be paid more attention in all level of national educational system This indicate that the moral education has been regarded as an important subject but there exists worries and doubts about the investment for moral education and effectiveness of the moral education with the 11 aims and objectives for educating and training a generation of good qualities and standards The moral education must be paid more attention, especially the moral education for students at high schools These students (aged 16-18) are in sensitive psychological development, so they need to be comprehensively educated and guided in relation to behavior, lifestyle, human value, love, belief, loyalty, the pride of the history, country and the world as well They should be trained to be aware of the real value of life In reality, the subject of moral education in school is regarded as a supplementary subject, not being paid due attention in both content and teaching method Student are not interested in the subject The moral education in school The program must include the moral values in all these aspects: person, family, society, nation and the world The content of moral education must help students foster their behavior, and the abilities to better learn other subjects However, the current moral education program doesn’t cater for their development and daily needs, and doesn’t include all necessary steps for them to integrate with a changing society With the psychological characteristics of students of this age, the moral education program is not confined to the text content or in-school activities, but it must include the out- school activities and daily life event in different aspects The implementation of moral education program The textbooks, materials, teaching method must be of varieties but the content has to be consistent with the direction of the state and MOET The out of date knowledge should be reconsidered 12 and updated accordingly so that the moral education program can attract the attention, interest and belief from the learners It is agreed that the implementation of moral education would be strengthened if there were a comprehensive program combining the textbook content with the daily events The assessment of morals should be diversified and conducted at different times during the whole course The effectiveness of extra- curriculum activities in the implementation of moral education for students The fact is that the content of the moral education remained unchanged for a long time, lacking the new standards, new skills, therefore the majority of participants agreed that there should be a combination between textbook knowledge with out- school activities These activities would make students more interested in the subject and learn it better Many schools have organized these activities, but the results are not quite effective because in many cases, the family and society have not been involved with these activities If the plan is carefully made, the participation from the family and society will be more evident and effective Linking school with family and society for better moral education and how it is done The family and society has a special role in moral education for students in high school, but this has not been evident and effective so far The school should work as flag ship in linking family and society together in the better implementation of moral education through the extra – curriculum activities program for students With absolute agreement, the participants strongly support 13 the designing a program of out-school activities with the coorganization from school, family and society 4.2 Designing a extra- curriculum activities program Based on the analysis and above remarks, we suggested the designing a program for moral education The program focused on the organization of the extra- curriculum activities with the participation of all school, family and society in which the school act as the flagship in the process The designing consists of steps: Step 1: Identifying of the problems related to the role, responsibilities, awareness of all parties in the implementation of moral education and solution for these problems Step 2: Suggesting of list of activities which are appropriate for all parties Step 3: Designing an action plan with the co- operation of the school, family and society for the extra-curriculum activities For step 1: The problem related to the awareness of the role, the responsibilities of family, society, the students in the field of moral education is quite evident in reality Some families think that the moral education for students is the responsibilities of the schools only, the society, to some extent, remains indifferent to the moral education for school students We have not yet mobilized and exploited the linkage between parties (school, family and society), so the financial support for this program is still limited Moreover, we have not done much to make the family and social organizations to be aware of their role, responsibilities and their benefit from the results of moral education Lastly, we have not properly negotiated or worked with the family and social organization to find out the 14 solution for these problems In short, we should carry out a lot of activities to overcome these difficulties by linking the school with the family and society by identifying the problems, clarifying the role and responsibility of each party and suggesting effective measures for the enhancement of moral education To put them together and recognize more problems, we should have meetings, discussing and even seminar with people of different jobs so that we can clarify the problems and find out the proper solution for moral education For step 2: Having identified the problems and the solutions for better linkage between the school with family and society, we went on with the suggestion and selection of the activities for the program We selected the activities by suggesting a lot of activities for many people to comment, then we chose 20 activities with highest preference from the participants The 20 activities almost focuss on visiting places of interest, museums, blood donation, charity, traffic rule, competitions The plan for each activity must include: Content of the program, Organizing parties, Participants from school, Student who participate, Financial support, Responsibilities of each party and results expected List of extracurricular activates is not fixed, contents may vary depending on the perspective, financial condition, different geographical condition The organizers can meet and work together to decide the proper and useful activities for their students For step 3: With 20 selected activities, with the frame of time in the school year, we designed a program of extra – curriculum activities with the co-operation, participation of all parties: schools, 15 family and society with the aim to enhance the implementation of moral education in school In the program, we clarified the content of activities and the role of flag ship of the school, the role and responsibility of all organizing parties, the contribution, the sharing of budget as well as the results expected from these activities The program we designed should be regarded as a sample program for the school to refer and exploit in order to specify their activities in all school year The number of activities, the content, time, participants, the budget…should be decided in such a way that these activities must be the destination for all parties to come and join Whatever scale these activities are organized, the objectives of these events must focus on the strengthening of the linkage between the school with family and society in the implementation of moral education for students The suggested program is regards as the sample only The school can refer to this sample program to work out the plan for the school year The number of activities, the place, time, budget, participants should be decided by the organizers 4.3 The evaluation After finishing the designing the program, we have asked 35 education experts, teachers working in different institutions for their comment We have made sets of evaluation questionnaires, focusing on the content, objective…of the program and the other focusing on the possibilities of implementing this program - Evaluation questionnaire implementing the program for the possibilities of 16 - Evaluation questionnaire for the content and objective of the program According to the results we got from the participants, most of them agreed the program has clear objective (WM:3.23) and is consistent with the social demand (WM:3.26) the content is said to be consistent with the objectives (WM:3.06) and to have balance among the activities (WM:2.89) The varieties of activities can encourage many people to participate (WM:3.31) and can be expected to bring about the change in the behavior of the students (WM: 2.80) The participants strongly agreed that such a program is necessary for all schools (WM:3.60) and that the program can contribute to linking the school with the family and society (WM: 3.23) and through this program the role and responsibilities of the family and society in the implementation of moral education can be better clarified However, there exist some worries and doubts about how to mobilize all social forces to participate in this program and how to conduct this program in other schools outside HaNoi CHAPTER V SYMMARY, CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 5.1 Summary Moral education program plays an important role in shaping and fostering the human behavior for students in school However, the moral education program has recently revealed some limitation and weakness in the content, teaching method the training of the subject teachers, etc Additionally, there exists the moral degradation among school students, especially students at high school (aged 16 – 17 18) From the results of moral ranking of students in 10 high schools in HaNoi during school years (2009 – 2012), we can realize that there is a slight decrease of number of students ranked as “very good”, and the number of students ranked as “bad” has increased year after year To have a deeper understanding and information for the study, we have designed a set of survey questionnaire with the aim to assess the current status of moral education in school, the effect of the out school activities, and the role of the linkage between the school with the family and society in the implementation of moral education and how to enhance that linkage as well We have invited 455 people working in education field and other industries to participate in the study by providing the information and comment through the survey questionnaire We have also met, talked and interviewed many educators, experts, lecturers, teachers for related information To our surprise, all these people were very enthusiastical and supportive for the study Based on their comments, remarks and information, we have identified the important role of moral education for the students at the age between 16 and 18 in high schools Yet, in the opinion of many experts, the subject of moral education is now regarded as a complementary subject, not being given due attention in both content and teaching method Students not enjoy this subject, so they lose their interest in learning Because the content of moral education program remained unchanged for a long time, lacking the new standards and updated knowledge, most of the participants strongly supported the combination of the textbook content with the extracurriculum activities outside the school The organizing of these 18 activities can push up their interest in learning The participants have also agreed that if the organization of these activities is carefully planned, the participation and support from the family and society will be much stronger and more effective Following are some remarks and findings we have made after careful analysis with the data and information collected: The moral education subject must be regarded as equally important as other subjects in schools and this must be given enough attention and priority A proper and flexible moral education program is extremely important for students in high school (aged 16-18) because they are learning to be come adults and they need to be educated and guided comprehensively on behavior, belief, lifestyle, love, pride of the nation and the world Moral education program is not confined to textbooks or in school activities, but it must be combined and integrated with real life events, therefore the teaching methods need to be improved in order to help students to be good at both theory and practice and to be obedient in school and in the family and in society as well The training of teachers for moral education subject must be paid more attention from MOET and the University/Colleges of education The content, teaching methods, the procedures of organizing the educational activities should be reviewed and updated after certain time so that the program can be consistent with new standards, new demand and social development The loose and ineffective linkage between the school with the family and society is considered to be one of the causes of 19 moral degradation in a part of students The linkage between these parties has a special role in moral education for students so the educators, trainers, managers in all schools should be more actively involved in finding out the possible solution to link together these parties- school, family and society for better moral education The schools should bring into full play the role of flag ship to make the family and social organizations more aware of their responsibilities and benefit in co-organizing and conducting the activities for moral education The schools should take the initiative in designing the proper extra- curriculum activities in designing the proper extra- curriculum activity program to encourage more people to join and mobilize more potentials from the family and social organizations as well With these reasons, we have designed a moral education program with extra-curriculum activities in order to enhance the implementation of moral education in school The program consists of steps: Step 1: identifying the problems in the linkage between the school with the family, society and the solution for these problems, then making the family and society more aware of their role, responsibility in the implementation of moral education for students Step 2: Suggesting and selecting a list of activities for out school events Step 3: Designing a program of extra activities to link the school with the family and society for better moral education In order to have objective evaluation for the program, we have asked educational experts to give remarks and comment on that We were happy to get very positive response from them They all, in 20 general, support the objectives and content of the program and also the procedures to organize the activities But, some of them still expressed their concern and worries about how to mobilize the financial contribution, and how to conduct these activities in the schools outside Hanoi 5.2 Conclusion With the assessment of the current status of moral education in some high schools in Hanoi, we can reach some conclusions as follows: - Moral education should not be confined to textbooks and activities inside the school, it must be linked with outside school activities and events so that students can have opportunity to join and widen their outlook of life - The school should take initiative and act as flagship in organizing the extra curriculum activities through the linkage with the family and society for better moral education - The choice of activities, the clarification of the role and responsibility of each party can guarantee the success of these activities - Only with the participation, support and high awareness of the family, government offices, social organizations, could the linkage be successful and strengthened for the renovation and improvement of moral education for students - The problem in moral education recently have got strong and critical response and reaction from the whole society The educational departments and all schools should exploit and take this opportunity to review, update and change the moral education program for a better one 21 5.3 Suggestion The solution for enhancing the moral education in this study is just one of many possible solutions in the field of education The successful application of the solution depends on many other factors: finance, support from society, response from family and students, etc However, we would like to suggest the application of the results of this study in the following cases: - Publish the result in the professional journals or on the website of the MOET - Present the solution in the conference or seminars - Use the result as reference materials for professional development for teachers - Conduct the program at small scale to see if it works so that we can improve or apply it at bigger scale Because of the limited time and resource, we just conducted the study with certain number of school and participants within a small area in Hanoi In the future, we suggest other studies with more schools, participants, not only at high schools but in all levels of education, not only the schools located in Hanoi, but schools in other localities so that we can have better picture of moral education program for educational reform and renovation in the coming years after 2015  ... of high school students in Hanoi? 3 Why the school, family and the society have to work together in moral education for high school students in Hanoi? Is the linkage among the school with the family. .. decided to choose the topic: ? ?Linking the school, family and society in enhancing the moral education program for high school students in HaNoi. ” for the study THE OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY We have... activities in the implementation of moral education for high school students; The linkage of the school with the family and society in moral education and how to better link them together We sent the