Renovation – The Future of Education after Covid

This requires educational organizations, especially non-public ones, to flexibly respond and renovate themselves to accommodate to a new situation.

Renovation based on true values

“Renovation" here means renewing and developing oneself, family, organization, community... based on sustainable values, which are not changed in every circumstance and throughout time. This is also an essential part of the sustainable development process.

 

Like a forest that has just experienced a natural disaster, if every seed and every sapling has the motivation to rise up, sprout and head for the sun, soon we will have a cluster of trees, a wood and then revive an entire forest. That is also how we renovate our life after the pandemic, building strong communities based on the core elements which consist of each individual, each unit, and each family. From a closer perspective, a part of VAS’s sustainably developing future lies in the efforts of each teacher, each staff member, each parent and each student in the coming time!” – Mr. Marcel van Miert – Executive Chairman of Vietnam Australia International School (VAS) shared at the opening ceremony.

This is also the new school year theme that VAS is pursuing: “Renovation based on true values”, with the meaning of renewing and developing oneself, family, organization and community... based on the values ​​which have been chosen as our guideline.

 

The role of students and teachers in this new situation

After the first two weeks of being back to school, more than 98% of VAS students participated in online lessons, quickly became familiar with and mastered the learning via Microsoft Teams platform. Ms. Nguyen Thi Kim Nhung, the homeroom teacher of Grade 1, Ba Thang Hai campus, said: “From the third sessions onwards, students were almost able to join the class on their own with little help from parents. They also grew to master some basic functions on Teams such as mute, unmute and raise hand to share ideas.”

 

Most of VAS students were familiar with online learning platform when participating in online summer course, online learning sessions in the previous years, or ICT  classes taught to students right from kindergarten level. “The change in awareness and habits in a new situation such as enhancing the ability to be independent, adaptable and responsible towards family, relatives, community or new goals in learning and in life… is also part of the self-renovation that VAS wishes to educate students at their respective ages”. – Mr. Marcel van Miert shared.

To prepare for this new school year, the school organized a large number of training sessions for Vietnamese and expat eachers teaching MOET and Cambridge international programmes to update new approaches to teaching and assessment as well as maximizing the application of technology in lectures.

This is also the first school year VAS has offered the fully-integrated Cambridge international programme for students from Grade 6, which is previously applied to Grades 9-12 only. The upgrade of three learning pathways including Cambridge English programme, Cambridge Academic Programme (Bilingual) and Cambridge Academic Programme International (Fully integrated) makes VAS the first international school in Ho Chi Minh City to offer 3 pathways with flexible outcomes, meeting the diverse needs of students and families.

The school also maintains extra-curricular and talent development activities that help share and practice optimism and lessons on flexibility to adopt to new situations through online talkshow series VAS Talks, painting contest, writing contest, sports and music contests... At the same time, the school encourages students to continue seeking for long-term solutions to support the community through the VASers For Community programme, 3Rs project...