Ministry of Education and Training includes tobacco prevention content in high school curriculum

The Ministry of Education and Training has just approved the Education Guide to integrate tobacco harm prevention into subject lectures and educational activities in high schools.

Bộ Giáo dục và Đào tạo đưa nội dung phòng chống thuốc lá giảng dạy bậc THPT

Tobacco harm prevention is a focus ofeducational institutions. (Source: iStock)

The document is compiled to support high school teachers in updating their knowledge about tobacco; the harmful effects of tobacco; ways to prevent and combat the harmful effects of tobacco; methodological approaches and forms of integrating this knowledge in teaching and learning a number of subjects and educational activities at high school level.

The document includes two main contents.

Part 1 provides an overview of the harmful effects of using tobacco products and tobacco harm prevention education.

This section helps readers better understand the harmful effects of tobacco, new tobacco products on human health, economy , society, environment; the position and role of education on tobacco harm prevention in comprehensive education of learners.

Part 1 also clearly states the content of education on tobacco harm prevention in the curriculum of subjects and educational activities at high school level of the 2018 General Education Program, at the same time helping readers have orientations on teaching methods and evaluating the learning outcomes of high school students on tobacco harm prevention.

Part 2 focuses on guiding the integration of tobacco harm prevention education into high school lectures and educational activities with contents such as determining objectives, principles, integration processes as well as guidelines for integrating tobacco harm prevention education into high school lectures and activities.

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, a survey on tobacco use in Vietnam shows that the rate of tobacco use among students aged 13-15 has decreased from 2.5% (in 2014) to 1.9% (in 2022). In the age group of 13-17, the smoking rate has decreased by 50% (from 5.4% in 2013 to 2.8% in 2019).

The rate of passive smoking among preschool to high school students in school areas will decrease from 24.4% (in 2020) to 20.5% (in 2022).

In recent times, the work of preventing and combating the harmful effects of tobacco has been focused on by educational institutions and has achieved remarkable results. However, a number of students still use conventional tobacco products, and the phenomenon of students using new tobacco products, such as electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products, is showing signs of increasing.

According to a 2019 survey by the World Health Organization (WHO), the rate of e-cigarette use among 13-17 year old students in Vietnam is 2.6%. In 2022, the rate of e-cigarette use among 13-15 year old students will be 3.5%.

According to WHO experts in Vietnam, for students, smoking one of the above types of tobacco will lead to tobacco addiction, dangerous diseases, risk of social evils, affect health, study results and future.

Therefore, according to the Ministry of Education and Training, integrating tobacco harm prevention education into the curriculum and educational activities is one of the important tasks.

Through this, students are aware of the serious consequences of smoking and have the right attitude and behavior towards preventing the harmful effects of tobacco, building a healthy, safe, smoke-free educational environment.

At the conference “Training to improve communication capacity on tobacco harm prevention,” organized by the Ministry of Information and Communications in coordination with the Tobacco Harm Prevention Fund (Ministry of Health) on November 23, Master Nguyen Thi Thu Huong - Tobacco Harm Prevention Fund (Ministry of Health) in Vietnam said that each year, about 40,000 people die from tobacco-related diseases (because tobacco use is the cause of 25 diseases).

It is predicted that by 2030, the number will increase to 70,000 deaths per year if effective tobacco harm prevention measures are not implemented.

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