Vinh-The Lam
For
many years, in their conversation about the pre-1975 education in South
Vietnam, especially when referring to high schools, the overseas Vietnamese
people only mentioned the big ones such as Petrus Ký, Gia Long High schools in
Sài Gòn, or Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, Lê Ngọc Hân High Schools in Mỷ Tho, or Phan
Thanh Giản, Đoàn Thị Điểm High Schools in Cần Thơ, or Quốc Học, Đồng Khánh High
Schools in Huế. They almost never
mentioned Thủ Đức Demonstration High School (TDDHS), directly under the jurisdiction
of the Faculty of Pedagogy, University of Sài Gòn (FPUSG), although this school
was opened in 1965, and thus had existed for ten years, and, in fact, had made
important contributions to the Republic of Vietnam’s (RVN) educational system. The author of this article, having worked at
this school for five years (1966-1971), both as Teacher of Social Studies (i.e.,
History & Geography) and Librarian, is trying to introduce the main
features of this school, which caused it to become the symbol of the real
modern educational policy and teaching method of the RVN.
