Time to get creative

Foreign languages and information technology are often touted as the way forward for Vietnamese students in a competitive, interconnected world. But, there is a smaller movement that puts creativity first and is changing the lives of a growing number of students and teachers.

Tran Thi Thu Ha was really, really bored.
The 25-year-old student at the primary education faculty of the Hanoi Teacher Training University spent months twiddling her thumbs and looking at the clock until she joined a creativity methodology (CM) course taught by Duong Xuan Bao.
"My confidence has really turned around and I feel like I've regained my love for life. To be quite honest I was a bit lost before the course, but now I've rediscovered myself," she said in her final essay which she treated as a private letter to her teacher.
Bao has taught CM since 1977 and describes the course as a chance for students and teachers to solve problems by learning from past experiences and investigating practical ways of finding a solution.
"There is no subject quite like it. Our university system puts so much focus on natural and social sciences, but the science of thought is what will take us into the next century.
"Education here in Vietnam is quite rigid and does not encourage creativity, diversity and independent thinking. Few of our students gain high marks in mathematical creativity problems.
"In this world full of tough competition, creativity is vital. But there are so many Vietnamese companies that simply produce the same things produced elsewhere in the world. They need to change their designs and come up with newer, more specific ideas.
"Scientific research shows the age at which humans are their most creative is around 14, after which we tend to settle into routines of thought. Creativity, however, can also be learned and practised.


"But for a long period of time, the poorly competent candidates were being recruited to teacher training universities.
"I think students are those who need a lot of flexibility, creativity, and ability to adapt themselves to a changing world.
"But at first, I intended to focus on teaching business people and help them solve basic economic problems in a creative way. What to do, how to do it, when to cut prices, when to increase quality, that sort of thing.
"In my early work I learned creativity responds to demand. Businesses face intense competition and need to create new and interesting things whether they like it or not.
"If you brought me a porcelain pot designer, for example, I bet I could teach him to draw up 100 different designs in an hour."
CM courses have taught over 12,000 students across the country.
"Creativity and creative ideas are the agents which will change this world," he said.
Course participant Nguyen Tuan Anh said he hoped the course would change the world's view of Vietnam.
"After I and my friends graduate we want to implement programmes that make us famous. We want the world to know that Vietnamese don't just learn theory and copy things."
At the age of 80, Tran Van Ha proved you are never to old to keep learning.
After completing the course in 2001, the agricultural economics expert went on to write several inspired articles for newspapers and magazines.
The tale of two teachersBao, along with Phan Dung who teaches at the Ho Chi Minh City National University, graduated from the Bacu Invention University in the former Soviet Union.
Both were trained by Russian creativity guru, Genrich Saulovich Altshuller.
Bao worked for the Invention Bureau of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment before opening the Vietnam Foundation for Science and Technology under the Hanoi City Department of Science and Technology.
Dung opened Ho Chi Minh City National University's Scientific and Technical Creativity Centre, the first in Asia and one of only 14 centres worldwide.
The two men share a belief that the next wave of civilisation will be driven by creativity, just as past waves have been driven by agriculture, industry and information.
"We missed the industrialisation train and to some extent the information train. If we do not get our act together we will miss the creativity train as well," Dung said.
"Backwardness in education is the ultimate backwardness."
Dung said he had contacted three ministers of education, past and present, asking them to devote more resources to creative methods of teaching at universities, primary and secondary schools.
He cited the example of Singapore - which has already introduced creative methodology to the regular curriculum - to plead his case.
He is yet to receive an official response.
"I am very sad this kind of education is being ignored. There remains a perception among officials that anything added to the existing curriculum would put too great a load on students. I don't think that's the case at all," Bao said.
Bao and Dung have their supporters. Hoang Hoa from the Ministry of Science and Technology said: "CM should be mandatory from secondary schools and taught as a compulsory subject for state workers, like administrative governance is now."
She says the interest is there.
A Ministry of Education and Training pilot project to create training programmes for university students has attracted nearly 20,000 scientists, officials, and consultants.
In 1992, the Institute of Educational Science organised a seminar on improving education at universities and colleges.
Creativity incorporated
Goldsun advertising and HanoiPetro are two of Bao's corporate clients.
Tuition fees for primary education courses are low, around $25 for two months, and he needs the money from corporate training programmes to supplement the cost of materials.
"In the US, tuition fees for a CM course are $5,000-$7,000. Some foreign teachers come to teach in Vietnam and charge $200-300 a class.
"This shows there is a huge market for people like us and I plan to open special courses for business executives that last only three or four days to suit their busy timetables.
"But I will still concentrate on training primary teachers. I graduated from university so I could work at the primary level and, with a little luck, I will be able to open more schools in the not-so-distant future."
Recently, with Bao's assistance, former graduates set up a creative thinking club which they named ASTA to remember Genrich Altshuller. ST stands for sang tao or creativity in Vietnamese.
"I'm busy, and sometimes I feel too short of energy to open new classes," Bao said.
"It's nice to have others taking up the fight."

Viet Hung reports

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