Practical shortcomings in training teachers of sports

JOURNAL OF SCIENCE OF HNUE Educational Sci. 2011, Vol. 56, No. 4, pp. 162-168 PRACTICAL SHORTCOMINGS IN TRAINING TEACHERS OF SPORTS Ho Dac Son Hanoi National University of Education Abstract. Training teachers in the subject of Sports have obtained con- siderable achievement in the past few years. The high increase of training institutions has overcome lack of teachers of Sports in the national education system especially in Primary School, that gets quality of physical education in schools more improve. For requirements of education reform, it is neces- sary to estimate objectively the basic shortcomings of the system of train- ning Sports teachers, acknowledging that the quality of training teachers is a foundation of sustainable development and a breakthrough improvement in the quality of physical education for the younger generation. 1. Introduction Vietnam’s Sports Development Strategy by 2020 has asserted: "To develop Sports as a significant part in the economic and social development policy of the Communist Party of Vietnam and the state aiming to foster and promote human resources. Developing Sport in schools has a profound social significance because it brings pupils and students not only harmonious development of physical and motor skills but also a base of knowledge, skills and fitness to perform the social and occupational function for younger generation in the future. Physical education in the school system has been constantly strengthening and improving in recent years in terms of: subjects and training; construction and development of teaching staff in number and levels; form and scale of organizing extra-curricular sports, etc. However, the quality and sustainability of school sport is still facing challenges of social economy and perception of each student, which should be overcome by consensus and contribution by the whole society. In addi- tion, teachers of sports in school systems should excite the younger generation to have their desire and passion for sport activities through their personality and the professional capacity. For requirements of Education Reform, it is necessary to have comprehensive reform of physical education in the school system, especially the training of teachers. Therefore, study on status of the professional quality of teachers of Sports and teacher training institutions in the universities of Education is urgency and the 162 Practical shortcomings in training teachers of Sports basis for building the content of innovation activities, meeting the practical needs of education. Accessing to practical education through methods of investigation, interviews and statistics in the study shows an overview of status of physical education in schools and teacher training in the Physical Education Departments of the univer- sities of Education nation-wide. 2. Content 2.1. The number and organization of teachers of Sports in the school system at all levels Table 1. Statistics on the number of teachers of Sports in schools of all levels in 2001 and 2009 Primary School Secondary School High School No. Year Number of schools Number of teachers of Sports Number of schools Number of teachers of Sports Number of schools Number of teachers of Sports 1 2001 13,737 3,321 9,133 14,417 1,900 4,950 2 2009 15,051 14,524 10,576 11,341 2,487 7,672 Table 1 shows that the number of teachers of Sports in schools of all levels have increased significantly, from 22,688 (in 2001) to 33,537 (2009), reaching the growth rate of 47.8%; the teacher-school ratio is 1:4 in Primary Schools in 2001 and is nearly 1:1 in 2009. For this number of teachers of Sports in Primary School, classroom teachers do not have to teach Sports contributing significantly to improve the quality of physical education in the school system. Specifically, in some provinces which still face many difficulties in geographical location, socio-economic conditions such as Dien Bien, Lai Chau, Hau Giang etc., teachers of Sports in Primary Schools actively popularize and they are not only enough numbers in every school but also gain standard level with 100% of teachers graduating from colleges and universities. Because of the requirements of the standardized education, many provinces and the local education sector has been actively coordinating with other training institutions to continue to upgrade teacher qualifications. There are about 1,000 - 1,500 teachers of Sports at all levels to be trained and finish university degree’s each year. 2.2. The current status of the professional quality of teachers of Sports in schools The survey of professional level of 1,301 teachers of Sports in 8 provinces from 2008 to 2010 showed as follows: 163 Ho Dac Son - Most teachers have many difficulties in their profession in renewal of text- books and teaching programmes, particularly for teachers trained in local universities of Education. - Many teachers do not meet the professional criteria for teaching the elective curriculum of the course. - Scientific research and initiative-experience writing done by teachers is bad. - There is a lack of basic knowledge on: innovation of teaching methods in positive directions for students as well as methods and forms of test-assessment; capabilities for analyzing, evaluating courses programmes; assessment and manage- ment of the education quality. - Their adaptation of education reform is slow. - Their abilities of self-study and self-improving still restrained. - Not enough resources to meet the requirements of Education Reform. The results show that the basic causes of the shortcomings mentioned above are derived from the training and teacher training institutions in universities of Education. 2.3. Inadequacies in training and institutions of teacher training of Sports 2.3.1. Number of lecturer of Sports In 2010, there were 21 colleges of Education, 22 universities of Education and faculties of Physical Education training teachers of Sports (in universities training the multi-job). The results of study on training and training institutions are shown in Table 2. Table 2. The number of lecturers and universities training teachers of Sports not including Sports universities and Sports universities of Education Qualifications Number of graduate students/year No. Universities T ot al of le ct ur er s B ac he lo r M as te r P h. D of Physical Education faculties with two subjects training (including physical education) in level of college 1 Hai Phong University 25 7 17 1 100 0 0 2 Qui Nhon University 15 0 15 0 300 200 0 3 Tay Nguyen Universityof Education 22 8 14 0 150 60 100 4 Hong Duc University 24 12 12 0 0 0 50 5 Vinh University 22 6 15 1 70 0 0 6 Hue University 50 34 15 1 120 120 0 164 Practical shortcomings in training teachers of Sports 7 Ho Chi minh Universityof Education 27 3 24 0 100 60 0 8 Thu Dau 1 University 10 7 3 0 0 0 30 9 Can Tho University 18 4 14 0 80 0 0 10 Hanoi National Univer-sity of Education 29 2 26 1 70 0 0 11 Hung Vuong University 12 6 6 0 0 0 60 12 Tay Nguyen University 9 8 0 1 60 0 0 13 Tay Bac University 26 1 25 0 0 50 0 14 Dong Thap University 19 7 12 0 90 0 45 15 Pham Van Dong Univer-sity 10 8 2 0 0 0 60 16 Quang Binh University 6 3 3 0 0 0 50 17 Phu Yen University 8 6 2 0 0 0 50 18 Hanoi 2 University ofEducation 18 2 16 0 0 60 0 19 Ha Tinh University 6 6 0 0 0 0 60 20 Da Nang University 30 4 26 0 0 0 50 21 Quang Nam University 10 6 4 0 60 0 0 22 An Giang University 14 4 10 0 50 0 50 Total 410 163 242 5 1,250 650 460 Table 3. The number of lecturers and colleges training teachers of Sports Qualifications Number of graduate students/year No. Universities T ot al of le ct ur er s B ac he lo r M as te r P h. D of Physical Education faculties with two subjects training (including physical education) 1 Ha Tay College of Education 16 13 3 0 55 0 2 Nam Dinh College of Education 10 9 1 0 40 0 3 Hung Yen College of Education 7 5 2 0 30 0 4 Ha Nam College of Education 9 8 1 0 80 0 5 Nghe An College of Education 16 11 5 0 35 0 6 Lang Son College of Education 7 7 0 0 50 50 7 Son La College of Education 9 7 2 0 50 0 8 Thai Nguyen College of Education 6 1 5 0 200 300 9 Vinh Phu College of Education 6 1 5 0 0 40 10 Ha Giang College of Education 6 5 1 0 50 0 11 Hanoi College of Education 12 5 6 1 40 0 12 Tuyen Quang College of Education 3 2 1 0 0 100 13 Soc Trang College of Education 3 2 1 0 0 50 14 Dong Nai College of Education 11 8 3 0 50 0 15 Long An College of Education 6 5 1 0 0 30 165 Ho Dac Son 16 Ca Mau College of Education 6 5 1 0 30 30 17 Vinh Long College of Education 5 5 0 0 30 0 18 Da Lat College of Education 11 8 3 0 35 0 19 Gia Lai College of Education 9 8 1 0 35 0 20 Thua Thien - Hue College of Edu-cation 6 4 2 0 0 50 21 Kien Giang College of Education 5 5 0 0 40 0 Total 169 124 44 1 820 650 Tables 2 and 3 show that degrees of Ph. D, Master, Bachelor of lecturers are the following: 1.2%, 59%, 39.8%, respectively, for universities and 0.6%, 26.1%, 73.3% for colleges. The average numbers of lecturers are 18.6 per university and 8 per college. In many training institutions, the current number of lecturers is not enough to train well, the rate of lecturers having qualification standards may be low, that requires to strive for solving such shortcomings in many years and most teachers of specialized theoretical subjects have passed the training course themselves without being basicly trained. 2.3.2. Types of education Previous years, the lack of teachers have been overcome by various ways, so two subjects training has solved needs of educational practice. However, this type of training has left the inadequacies in the level and capacity of professional teachers before requirements of raising the general education quality. At present six universities and eight colleges remain as two-subjects train- ing (including physical education) should be interested in innovating content and method of teaching to meet the requirements of educational practices. 2.3.3. Training programme For the programme of two-subjects training, proportions of training time of two specialist subjects being divided are 4:6 and 3:7. Though at any rate, it has no effect on training both knowledge and skills of specialist subjects in physical education with that amount of training time. Students of sports need to acquire knowledge and skills for many different sport subjects; therefore, duration of training has especially important significance for completing the content requirements of each subject. However in form of training credits, the amount of self-study time increases, which requires training institutions to urgently meet facilities for the needs of students’ self-study. The target of output in training teacher of sports is to provide the human resources for the general education system, so in the process of training, those in- stitutions have to equip students with good qualities and capabilities to meet the professional requirements of general education and to integrate effectively into the 166 Practical shortcomings in training teachers of Sports reality of school life. However, the content of the program lacks the basic knowl- edge that every teacher in spite of any specialized training should be trained: the knowledge and skills of innovative teaching methods; test and evaluation; analy- sis and evaluation of program; testing and evaluating the quality of education and educational management, etc. All the above have caused obstacles for teachers of Sport including slow adap- tation to educational environment, lack of potential of expecting and approaching innovation before changes in educational practices. 2.3.4. Capacity of self-study and implementation of research activities The results of study showed that weak points of majority of teachers such as the ability of summing up and evaluating training results of those institutions and each individual teacher; the ability of exploiting and choosing research orientation as well as planning self-study and self-improvement; the ability of guiding students in scientific research and thesis implementation; lack of knowledge and skills of presenting scientific reports and organizing scientific research; lack of professional documents, references on areas of specialized science and educational science. 2.3.5. Facilities for training Most training institutions of teachers of Sport have difficulties in sport sta- diums and training equipment. Many training institutions do not have stadiums, gymnasiums and other essential conditions and still have implemented training for years. Statistics on facilities show that: - There are 14 of the 22 universities and there are 10 of the 21 colleges being equipped with stadiums for teaching athletics and football; - There are 13 of the 22 universities and there are 10 of the 21 colleges being equipped with tournament halls; - There are 13 of the 22 universities and there are 7 of the 21 colleges having running tracks to teach running techniques in distances of 400 m to 1,500 m; - There are 17 of the 22 universities and there are 13 of the 21 colleges having running tracks to teach running technique in distances of 100 m; - There are 21 of the 22 universities and there are 19 of the 21 colleges with volleyball courts. - There are 20 of the 22 universities and there are 13 of the 21 colleges with basketball courts. - There are 20 of the 22 universities and there are 15 of the 21 colleges with Table Tennis (ping-pong) halls. 167 Ho Dac Son 3. Conclusion Professional quality of teachers of Sport in the system of schools has mas- sive shortcomings. The basic reason for that is derived from inadequacy in training teachers of Sport in universities of Education. Therefore, it is necessary to create synchronization conditions for improving the quality of teachers of Sport in the form of two-subjects training and timely equip additional facilities for many training in- stitutions, especially colleges of Education. REFERENCES [1] Education statistics in 2008. Ministry of Education and Training. [2] Education statistics in 2009. Ministry of Education and Training. [3] Sum-up of the Phu Dong Health Association in 2008. Ministry of Education and Training. [4] Theoretical and practical research for the issue of Teachers, 2006. Publishing House of Hanoi National University of Education, (in Vietnamese). TÓM TẮT Đào tạo giáo viên thể dục thể thao - những tồn tại từ thực tiễn Công tác đào tạo giáo viên TDTT trong những năm qua đã thu được những thành tựu đáng kể. Sự phát triển mạnh mẽ về số lượng cơ sở đào tạo đã cho phép khắc phục cơ bản tình trạng thiếu giáo viên TDTT trong hệ thống giáo dục quốc dân, đặc biệt là đối với bậc tiểu học; cho phép công tác Giáo dục Thể chất (GDTC) trường học chuyển sang một giai đoạn mới, giai đoạn hoàn thiện và nâng cao chất lượng. Trước yêu cầu của đổi mới giáo dục, cần thiết có sự đánh giá khách quan về những tồn tại cơ bản của hệ thống đào tạo giáo viên TDTT với thái độ coi chất lượng đào tạo là nền tảng của sự phát triển bền vững, lấy chất lượng đào tạo giáo viên làm khâu đột phá để nâng cao chất lượng GDTC cho thế hệ trẻ. 168