American International School Vietnam in Nhà Bè District, HCM City. —Photo courtesy of the school

The American International School Vietnam (AISVN) continues to be suspended for another 12 months, as of July 1.

HCM City Department of Education and Training and an interdisciplinary team from the city have been working with AISVN’s school board and investors since May 28.

A report into the school, due to be submitted by June 15, has not yet arrived at the education department which could have allowed it to continue educational operations.

On March 18 this year, all classes were cancelled when a majority of the school’s teaching staff went on strike over unpaid salaries. Nearly 90 of them resigned over the following two days.

Since April, more than 134 students from AISVN have been transferred to other schools to continue their education.

HCM City Department of Education and Training has worked with 18 secondary schools with foreign investments or who offer foreign curriculum programmes, as well as the Việt Nam Australia International School (a public school under the department’s management) to assess admission capacity and support policies for students who wish to transfer from AISVN.

On June 28, the department also issued the Official Dispatch No 4011/SGDĐT-GDTrH providing transfer guidelines for AISVN students via the website https://chuyentruong.hcm.edu.vn.

AIS American International Education JSC, the head investor of AISVN, is required to be accountable towards its students as well as the teaching and administrative staff.

HCM City Department of Education and Training said that the company must take appropriate actions to ensure students’ rights to education and uninterrupted learning.

It must also ensure benefits as agreed with employees in their contracts and comply with regulations on employing foreign workers according to the laws.

In September last year, many parents gathered in front of the school to protest, saying that they signed zero-interest loan contracts totalling billions of đồng with AISVN so that their children would be exempted from official tuition fees.

However, when their children completed the programme or transferred to another school, they did not receive any repayment as stated in the contracts.

A representative of AISVN said that they had been repaying the investments on time in the past, but recently these payments have been delayed due to difficult circumstances.

The HCM City Department of Education and Training demanded a report from AISVN to assess whether the school is eligible for educational operations according to the 2019 Law on Education and Decree 46/2017/NĐ-CP on regulations on investment and operations in the education sector.

AISVN is a private educational institution with all local investors. Prior to being suspended the school had more than 1,200 students in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Programme, 129 foreign teachers, 26 Vietnamese teachers and 103 staff members. — VNS