VietNamNet Bridge – Fifty four percent of parents have admitted that they “give money under the table” so as to be able to enroll their children in "star schools", a survey conducted by the HCM City Open University has found.

The surveyors received 150 replies from the parents who have children going to primary schools in districts 3, Tan Binh and Hoc Mon in HCM City.

50 percent of students go to the schools not reserved for them

Under the current regulations, local education departments decide which schools students would go to. In principle, students would go to the schools located in the same districts, where they live so as to create most favorable conditions for them and their parents.

However, a lot of parents don’t want to send their children to the schools reserved for them. Urbanites now decide that their children need to receive education in the best possible conditions. Therefore, they would do everything to send their children to "star schools" which can provide better education quality.

Some 45.3 percent of the 150 polled parents said their children go to the schools not reserved for them. Many reasons have been cited explaining why parents decided to send children to other schools. First, their children need to enroll in prestigious schools which can provide good education quality.

Second, the schools reserved for their children have been overloaded, which raises doubts about the education quality of the schools.

Third, it would be better to send children to the schools near parents’ offices, so as to make it more convenient to pick children from school.

To note, 54.4 percent of students admitted that they asked someone, who has good relations with the targeted schools’ leaders, to enroll their children in the schools. Meanwhile 30.9 percent of students said they themselves applied for the seats at the schools. One out of every 10 parents said he has to pay big money in order to be able to obtain a seat at famous schools.

When being asked about the ways to enroll in "star schools", the parents said the easiest way is

Paying underground money to obtain seats at the wanted schools has become so popular with 76 percent of parents saying they heard about this and only 24 percent saying they don’t know about this.

Especially, the majority of parents do not think that this is a bad behavior to pay underground money to be able to go to the schools not reserved for their children.

Also, 64.9 percent of parents said “this was quite a normal thing”, while only 31.6 percent of parents disagreed with the behavior.

Surveyors have found out a link between the parents’ careers and the schools their children go to. For example, the parents who are freelance workers, factory workers who have low income, said they would send their children to the schools they are told to do.

Meanwhile, the parents with high income or high academic standards seem to be choosier about the schools, and they tend to choose prestigious schools for their children. Especially, more parents in the inner city have their children going to star schools than the parents in the suburb areas.

The fact that students refuse to go to the schools reserved for them has caused a headache to the local education department.

Mr. Le Ngoc Diep, deputy head of the primary education division of the HCM City Education and Training Department, said parents always want the schools with good fame for their children, while they don’t know that the schools near their houses can also provide high education quality.

VTC