Legal education for high school students in Vietnam: an observation from the context of Hanoi city

This combination is shown from the construction of documents, guidance, administration, guidance on the implementation of common educational activities, organizing classes, disseminatio[r]

HANOI CITY

Dr Nguyen Thi Thu Huong, Dr Mai Thi Tuyet, Dr Duong Van Khoa

Politic – Civic Education Faculty, Ha Noi National University of Education

Abstract

Legal education is the first step of implementing laws, it is a bridge to convey the law to life In fact, it is necessary to pay attention to legal education for citizens in school As the age of high school students is the transitional age between children and adults, legal education activities for this group play an important role in training human resources for the country

Vietnam is focusing on reforming the general education program, legal education is a part of it This article analyzes Legal Education for high school students in Vietnam to answer the following questions: (1) Why is legal education necessary for high school students in the current period? (2) What are the characteristics of high school students in Hanoi and what are the requirements for legal education for this subject? What are the advantages and challenges of legal education for high school students in Hanoi? (3) What are the solutions for legal education for high school students in Hanoi in order to meet the current requirements?

According to the author, legal education for high school students in Hanoi has been playing an important role and is becoming an indispensable learning content in high schools However, in the process of implementation, in addition to the remarkable results, this activity still reveals many shortcomings regarding the contents of the program, forms, methods, subjects and conditions therefore it is not really effective in the process of educating students as citizens The author argues that, in order to enhance legal education for high school students, it is necessary to follow general solutions such as improving institutions for legal education activities, developing teachers, ensuring material conditions, funding

Key words: legal education, legal education for high school students, Vietnam

Why is legal education necessary for high school students in Vietnam?

Like legal education in general, education for high school students (high school) is an oriented, organized, purposeful activity to equip students with knowledge, affection, trust for the law, thereby providing students with an awareness of the law as a basis for the formation of actions and behaviors consistent with the law right from the time they are sitting on a chair at school and after graduation

In the current context, legal education for high school students is very necessary On the path

of deeper and deeper international integration, especially in the coming period, Vietam must fulfill all commitments with the ASEAN community and the WTO to create opportunities for national

development but there are also big challenges The problems of infrastructure and superstructure which still have significant shortcomings will be barriers in the integration process, especially the

legal awareness of the people in general and the young labour division in particular To overcome that

barrier, it is very important to equip legal knowledge for people, especially for young citizens when

they are still in school

In recent decades, at the same time of the process of international integration, the Party and the

State of Vietnam have paid great attention to investment in education in general and education in

particular This is reflected in the direction and task of building and developing the human culture

defined in the 12th Party Congress Document: “Building the Vietnamese people for comprehensive

development must become an objective of development strategy Forging and building up the cultural

value system and the standard value system of Vietnamese people in the period of industrialization,

modernization and international integration; creating the environment and conditions for the development of personality, morality, intelligence, creative capacity, physicality, soul, social responsibility, civic obligations, and a sense of law compliance ”[1] Instruction 32 TW of the Secretariat of December 9, 2003 pointed out that it is necessary to consider legal education “as one of

the key tasks in strengthening social management by law ”

In the construction of the country, legal education for high school students has an important

role for the cause of education and training, as well as for the whole society This is reflected in the

following aspects:

Firstly, legal education contributes to ethical education, lifestyle, personality formation, behavioral training for students who “to live and work in accordance with the Constitution and laws”

Along with ethical education, legal education has a role in creating long-term stability for the

society People living in society must not only live according to ethical standards but they also must

comply with legal norms In Vietnamese culture during the feudal period, the popular consciousness

was “the king’s authority lose to the village’s rules.” The consequence of this is that although laws

were enacted by the feudal state, it could not or could only “interfere” in a very limited way the

villages, neighbors and the behavior of every citizen In the villages and hamlets, traditions have the

greatest effect, and the words of the patriarch are of great value

In modern times, the outdated concepts mentioned above have gradually changed However, the

awareness of law compliance of some Vietnamese people is still limited Most people still do not have

the habit of working according to the law, in many situations, the concept of “love” is more important

than “reason”, so solving the work is often based on the subjective will of the individual without

accordance with the law

Recognizing this situation, the State of Vietnam has long determined that legal education is a

part of the educational curriculum content at all educational levels and training levels of the national

education system Legal awareness education in high schools is basically done through teaching legal

content in civic education, or through integration in history, geography and literature In addition,

legal education in high schools is also organized through extra-curricular activities (talking about

laws, law-examination, democratic law-flower picking, creative experience activities ) Through

these educational activities, students are equipped with and reinforce the legal knowledge they have

learned, fostering affection and belief in the legal standards in order to motivate and behave according

to legal standards

Legal awareness education in schools aims to create a sense of law for students from the time they sit in a school chair This activity plays an important role in educating ethical lifestyle, forming personality and legal awareness for students, creating human resources suitable to the needs and development of society For high school students, besides moral education, the implementation of legal education will promote the healthy development of students in the period when they have great fluctuations in psychophysiology In a broader view, in the current trend of international integration, education in schools also helps orient the lives and determining values for the younger generation Thanks to legal education, the society has a disciplined and orderly society, creating conditions for a stable, developing society and citizens capable of facilitating international integration

Secondly, legal education aims to develop students comprehensively, because the final product of education are people who posess all the elements: Ethics - Intelligence - Fitness – Beauty (in Vietnamese: Đức – Trí - Thể - Mỹ) A citizen in a multitude of situations taking place in his personal life, in interaction with his family and society, knows how to behave in a civilized manner, obey the law, create benefits for himself, community, society is the highest expression of Intelligence A person who knows how to behave according to the standards prescribed by law, has a way of living according to the “legal culture”, overcoming the limitations of legal awareness, legal ethics are the manifestations of comprehensive development of Ethics, Fitness and Beauty

In the current context of the country, when there are certain conflicts between economic development and social order and safety, law violations is on the increase and criminals has the trend

of being younger, it is impossible not to pay attention to legal education in schools

Thirdly, education for high school students is contributing to training high-quality human resources for society and the country The fact that every year a large number of high school students graduate but do not go on to university studies but instead start participating in the labour market That human resource needs legal knowledge to be able to behave according to the law To do this, it

is necessary to promote legal education for high school students

Implementing the directions and strategies set by the Party, the State has issued many legal documents and implemented projects on legal education, especially the Law on Dissemination and Legal Education in 2012 However, legal awareness activities in general and pedagogical education for high school students (high school) in particular is still not synchronized and does not meet the practical requirements Consequently, many students violate the law due to lack of legal knowledge Especially in large areas such as the capital Hanoi, high school students are strongly affected by the negative side of the market mechanism, so the rate of students violating the law has increased rapidly

in recent years

From many perspectives, high school students are the transition between school and society, which is an additional force to the human resources for society They have full citizenship rights and obligations after leaving high school to establish the business process, established itself according to the expectations of family and society Therefore, it will create great social problems if high school students are not provided with comprehensive education, including legal education, even when they are still in school Not only that, good results, the education for high school students must take into account the characteristics of this target group, as well as the specific requirements set in different areas

The selection of high school students as the object of research stems from the important

«transitional» nature of this group; while the selection of Hanoi as a research area comes from the

fact that this is a city with a high population concentration and a large number of high school students,

and is also a fast-growing area in all economic, social and cultural aspects compared to other localities

of Vietnam

2 Characteristics of high school students in Hanoi and requirements for legal education for

this subject

2.1 Characteristics of high school students in Hanoi

According to statistics in 2016, there are now 2391 high schools nationwide Vietnam, of which

Hanoi has 212 schools with 196,469 students, including the public sector with 110 schools (accounting

for 51.8%), people-founded and private schools with 102 schools (accounting for 48.2%) [6] The oldest school is Viet Duc High School (established in 1897) with a tradition of over 100 years Recently,

many high quality private schools have been established with an inter-school model, including high

schools, such as Vinschool, TH School

The ratio of high school students in Hanoi to the total population is 196,469 students / 7,328,400

people [6] On average, every 37 people has a high school student This is a very high rate compared

to most other localities across the country, second only to Ho Chi Minh City (in Ho Chi Minh City

this ratio is 204,506 / 8,277,500, Hai Phong is 52,882 /1,980,800, Da Nang is 29,396 / 1,046,200, in

Can Tho, this rate is 28,667 / 1,257,900, the northern midland and mountainous provinces average

314,583 / 11,984,300) [6]

From the research works of some other authors and the author’s survey results at 12 high schools

in Hanoi city including both public and private, urban areas and suburban high schools Yen Hoa, Tay

Ho high school, Cau Giay high school, Quang Trung high school, Xuan Dinh high school, Ung Hoa

high school, Nguyen Van Cu high school, Thanh Oai high school, Thach That high school, Hoai Duc

A high school, Lomnoxop high school, Nguyen Binh Khiem high school), can give some general

comments about high school students in Hanoi as follows:

Firstly, the majority of high school students in Hanoi have psychological development earlier

than their age.

In the current general education system of Vietnam, high school level is prescribed for 3 school

years, from grade 10 to grade 12, corresponding to ages 16 to 18 This is also the period of puberty

start and finish to enter adulthood, so children have strong physical, psychological and psychological

development At the same time, this is also the most important stage for the formation of their personalities During this period, children have just gone through their childhood years but not yet

young adults, so their psychological development is often more complicated than in other stages This

is a difficulty for them as well as their families, society, schools, organizations and forces in the field

of education

The above feature is not new in age psychology research, but researchers have shown that, in the

last decade, the high school students in Vietnam in general and especially in cities have seen significant

growth, far exceeding the average pace of previous decades Specifically, according to the authors’ study,

the indicators of height, weight of high school students in Hanoi in 12 surveyed schools all surpassed

the threshold before 2020

Secondly, in general, high school students in Hanoi have better cognitive development than other local students

The cognitive capacity of high school students in Hanoi has also grown very recently Although this is the common characteristics of high school students across the country, but the development of the power of perception of high school students in Hanoi and some other big cities are somewhat higher than in the delta provinces and mountainous regions This is mainly due to the fact that children living

in the capital environment have a lot of favorable conditions to access knowledge and information The manifestations of the outstanding development in this criterion of high school students are: the rate of high school students passing university and college; The percentage of students winning high prizes in national and international examinations is higher than other localities

Table 2.1 Percentage of high school graduates in some cities of Vietnam

(Source:General Statistics Office of Vietnam)

Thirdly, in general, high school students in Hanoi have better social development than students

in other localities.

At high school age, students often have a desire to assert themselves and have an independent need for thinking and action This is a natural development of this age group in every locality, but in Hanoi and other major cities, in general, this characteristic of high school students is superior to those

in lowland provinces, mountainous

The manifestations of the outstanding development in this criterion of high school students in Hanoi are: they are able to express themselves better, having confidence, energey and broad social understanding than those in other provinces In particular, they are more active and creative in their awareness and activities This is mainly because they live in the dynamic socio-economic environment

of the capital city, and are exposed early and often to books, newspapers, movies, photos and vibrant social activities in homes, schools and public spaces

Fourth, high school students in Hanoi have the highest conflict rate with the law among juvenile groups

The concept of children/young people in conflict with the law refers to a wide range of actions caused by children that do not comply with the provisions or standards prescribed by law These can

be major, serious offenses, considered crimes, and may be subject to criminal prosecution, such as theft, robbery, and intentional bodily injury to others, even murder But it may also be minor violations that are not subject to criminal penalties, such as traffic law violations, disturbing public order

At the age of 16-18, children have very strong psychological fluctuations while their ability to

control themselves is limited, so the risks of conflict with the law are higher than at other age This is

also a common feature of high school students in every locality, but in Hanoi, there are some specific

risks, as follows:

Firstly, the security environment in some areas of Hanoi city is more complicated than in other

localities, reflected in the more concentrated and frequent presence of social evils such as drug

addiction, prostitution, theft, robbery The complex environment can completely affect the students,

especially when the management and supervision of families, heads of houses and local authorities

prove to be ineffective

Secondly, in general, the cultural environment in Hanoi is richer but more diverse and has more

harmful factors for children than in some other localities Compared to children in other localities,

children in Hanoi can access depraved and violent cultural products through movies, photos or

online games on the Internet much more easily Many studies have demonstrated that these types of

toxic cultural products are one of the leading causes of violations of the law of children

Thirdly, in general, the family environment in Hanoi city is richer in wealth but also more risky

for children than in some other localities Specifically, in Hanoi city, the relationships between family

members, the care of parents to children in many families are not as close as in the lowland and

mountainous provinces This is because the city’s pace of life is much faster than other regions, urban

citizens, especially parents, are often very busy, unintentionally leading to abandonment of children

In this context, some children, especially during puberty, have fallen into unhealthy habits such as

gaming addiction, social networking, having demands, early love, even abandoning their homes

Together with the lack of experience, life skills, distraction of the family, it is easy to put them in a

situation of law violation

In terms of the above, according to statistics of the Hanoi police, in the first 6 months of 2018,

the rate of children violating laws is quite high, as shown in the table below:

Table 2.2 Statistics of law violations in Hanoi city

Violation

Total number of incidents

Male Female Total number

of violators

Under

14 Years old

14-16 15- Under

18

% from 15

to under 18

Extortion of

property

Delibertely

infilicting

ịnury

Property

theft

Disturbing

public order

Total number of incidents

Male Female Total number

of violators

Under

14 Years old

14-16 15- Under

18

% from 15

to under 18

Illegal use of

narcotics

Drug

trade and

posession

Data from the table above shows that the highest rate of law violations falls in the age group of 15-18, which is the age of high school students Specifically, according to the table above, perpetrators

of high school age accounted for 60% of the murder rate; 100% of the crime of robbing and raping property; 83.3% of the crime rate of intentionally causing injury; 57.9% of the crime of property theft; 53.6% of the crime rate causing public disorder; 80% of gambling crime rate; 100% of the crime rate of buying and selling drug possession; 81.8% of other crime rates Thus, in all forms of crime, the prevalence rate of high school age group accounts for more than half, of which many types of offenses account for 100%

Previously, statistics of 2015, 2016 and 2017 on the situation of law violations in adolescents of

Hanoi police also showed that the culprit among high school students accounted for a high proportion

From the above analysis, it is different from students in many localities across the country, especially those in rural, remote, ethnic minority areas and high school students in the City Hanoi is very crowded, so it should be legal-educated Teaching legal documents for children about content, form, method, means also needs specific characteristics to suit their qualifications and needs in order to meet practical life and learning activities of high school students in the current capital Legal education for high school students in Hanoi has been organized for many years, so far it has been quite stable in terms of organizational structure, learning materials and teaching methods, so it has achieved encouraging results:

- The level of legal knowledge of high school students in Hanoi has been increasingly improved

It can be affirmed that up to now, demand as well as legal knowledge has become permanent in a part of students Out of 1,520 students asked “What is the law?”, 67% answered correctly and fairly correctly the concept of law

- Their awareness of laws, attitudes and beliefs also have positive changes, gradually forming habits and culture of living and working according to the Constitution and laws This is reflected in the fact that most of high school students in Hanoi implement the rules and regulations of the school and class well They also participate in supporting traffic safety activities in their local area, near their school

However, as mentioned above, the research results of the author also show that the educational activities for high school students in the city still have some shortcomings as follows:

- Institutionally, there is a lack of a comprehensive program for legal education for high school students, leading to schools having to use the main curriculum of civic education, which has been developed and issued since 2006 and has revealed major limitations and shortcomings Extracurricular legal education activities are often conducted passively, copying, following movements but have not

really become regular needs, so they have not brought about practical effects due to the small amount

of time and due to the lack of appropriate facilities In fact, in order to have effective extracurricular

lessons, the preparation of places, facilities and transportation needs to be ensured of the favorable

conditions that are currently available at high schools in Ha Noi Internality is not fully met

Regarding the form and method of teaching: In recent years, due to the implementation of strong

renovation of general education in saying no to reading and writing teaching, student-centered high

schools in Hanoi City have basically met the requirements of education innovation However, a major

inadequacy of civic education is that there still exists a large number of political education teachers

teaching civic education, so the teaching methods of these teachers are not really close to the specific

subject The teaching is still heavy in theory, imparting knowledge without paying attention to the

formation of attitudes, emotions, and awareness of the law of students, not moving towards practicing

and handling legal situations Only very few schools have the conditions to apply activities such as

law enforcement fact finding, listening to legal talks, attending courts

Integrated, interdisciplinary teaching today is proving its superiority in education and is on the

roadmap of implementation, especially in the overall program after 2018 It is possible to integrate the

contents of legal education into some subjects such as History, Geography, Literature, etc However,

the author’s survey shows that this form of integrated education has not been applied at all high schools in the city of Hanoi

- The use of facilities and means to support legal education for students and teachers is not effective Through the survey, the author found that most of high schools in Hanoi have legal bookcases

but pupils and teachers use with low frequency and not effectively Among the reasons leading to this

situation are the compilation of books and legal documents that are not really suitable for the school:

they are still heavy in writing, presented in a monotonous, not eye-catching way, not raising interest

and make it difficult to convey the message

- Among teachers and educators, there are some people who are not professional (as mentioned

above) This stems from the old bachelor training mechanism of the pedagogical schools Prior to

2006, most civic teachers were trained in the bachelor’s degree in political education, focusing on

academic knowledge in the fields of Socialist Science, Philosophy, History of the Party, Ho Chi Minh

Thought, Political Economy; specialized knowledge of legal education is limited to the module of

General Theory of State and Law These are teachers over 30 years old, currently accounting for a

large proportion in high schools Therefore, when teaching content of legal documents, they cannot

avoid confusion and shortcomings Recently, in order to prepare the team for the overall program, the

Departments of Education and Training in Ha Tinh, Ha Giang, Can Tho actively took this force to

train and foster legal education, but in the Department of Education and Training of Ha Noi, internal

training has been organized yet

There are both subjective and objective reasons leading to the above limitations Subjectively,

there can be a number of reasons such as:

- The awareness of the importance of educational activities for high school students of the leadership team, teachers of schools and even within themselves and their families is limited Most

of these subjects have not really considered legal education as a necessary task besides teaching other

science subjects Therefore, many schools are still passive in planning for teaching and preparing

conditions to ensure higher education for high school students

- The quality of legal education teachers (civil education teachers) is still weak and has not yet received intensive legal training Currently, most of the civic education teachers in the class who were trained by pedagogical schools have graduated from political education and civic education (graduated from 2006 to present) In both disciplines, the number of units of study (credit) in law accounts for just over 7% of the total number of units of study (credits) trained Hanoi has not implemented training and retraining on legal education for this team

Objectively, we can mention the negative impact of the economic and social context of the capital on education in general and legal education in particular The pressure of population growth

- mainly mechanical increase – and the tastes of people in choosing high schools in Hanoi for their children, leads to pressures on schools, pushing educational infrastructure to the brink of overload Therefore, legal awareness activities are also significantly affected

3 Solutions for promoting legal education for high school students in Hanoi

Teachers who do legal education

Teachers who do legal education plays a decisive role in improving the quality of teaching and learning legal knowledge in schools This team is composed of civil education teachers, teachers in some disciplines capable of integrating legal education, homeroom teachers, officials in union work, associations Currently, in general, across the country, this team is still thin, lacking in quantity and not yet standardized in terms of training From the reality of Hanoi city, there can be some solutions for the above problem:

For civil education teachers

+ Pedagogical schools need to revise the framework of the bachelor program in civil education

to be in line with the specific legal education content by increasing the amount of time for the legal content In the context of preparing to implement a new general education program, in which the subject of Civil Education in High School is changed into Economics and Law Education, teachers need to be trained in legal knowledge that can meet the subject’s requirements

+ For teachers trained under the previous program of Bachelor of Political Education and those who have not been trained in Political Education, Civil Education needs to be fostered in legal education The Ministry of Education and Training has assigned a number of leading pedagogical units

to undertake the task of retraining the civil education teachers Some Departments of Education and Training have paid close attention, creating favorable conditions for high school civil education teachers

to study such as: Departments of Education and Training of Ha Tinh, Nghe An, Cao Bang, Ha Giang In some years of implementation, a large number of teachers have not yet been involved

- For other legal education subjects: It is necessary to be proactive and creative in seeking ways to improve the knowledge and methods of legal education for these subjects, for example through training, self-fostering In addition, it is also necessary to strengthen the incentive regime for teachers and the contingent of educators

3.2 Curriculum, textbooks, forms and methods of teaching

3.2.1 Standardize curricula and textbooks

On May 5, 2006, the Minister of Education and Training signed Decision No 16/2006 / QD-BGDDT promulgating the general education program, including the subject of Civil Education In the

general education program, it was clearly stated: “The content of Civil Education subject is closely

linked to the practical life of students, attached to in ethical, legal, economics, politics, social events

of the locality and of the country Therefore, between the standard contents for the whole country, the

program also has an open section to teach issues of local concern.”

However, from Hanoi’s practice, it shows that the textbooks compiled under the Civil Education

curriculum at high schools all have too difficult lessons compared to the students’ cognitive level In

addition, there are some articles that are too long, some outdated information, unattractive presentation

format Content of general education is mainly taught to 12th grade students At the same time, legal

knowledge is still general, abstract and not specific, such as: laws for the sustainable development of

the country; laws for peace and the progressive development of mankind Basically grades 10 and 11

are not allowed to be educated This is a shortcoming that needs to be addressed Legal education, like

moral education, needs to be conducted in a synchronized and continuous manner The school does

not just stop at the task of providing legal knowledge for learners, but more importantly it needs to

form legal awareness, culture and behavior Therefore, the educational process needs to be conducted

continuously, possibly starting at the elementary level and ending at the university level

In order to meet the requirements of the country’s situation and current international changes, it

is necessary to change the curricular content of high school education accordingly Specifically, the

legal curriculum and content should be developed for all grades 10, 11 and 12, and the content of

legal education should be appropriate to the psychology of learners’ age and meet the requirements

of practice

The revision of textbooks of civil education in high school needs to be considered an urgent

issue In addition, it is necessary to focus on basic and comprehensive renovation of textbooks of

civil education textbooks in the roadmap for developing the general high school curriculum to be

used after 2018

Textbooks for Civil education will be more qualified when the following requirements are met:

- Sticking to the goals, the legal education program provides sufficient knowledge, while focusing

on strengthening beliefs, positive attitudes, training skills, forming behavioral habits in accordance

with legal standards of students

- Ensure content is streamlined, close to reality, fits students well, avoid embracing specific

knowledge and legal documents because it will be very quickly outdated

- Create conditions for students to improve their self-study capacity and teachers to innovate

positive teaching methods with simple but focused presentation

- The language is clear, the style is easy to understand for all regions, attaching importance to

both the text and image channels, reasonable prices

The structure of the textbook should be open, paying close attention to practical legal situations

for students to apply in life

Regarding how to organize the implementation, the State should allow many establishments and

subjects to write textbooks and create conditions for schools to select textbooks

In addition, the Ministry of Education and Training also needs to promulgate documents guiding

the implementation of the standards of knowledge and skills of the Civil Education program and