VietNamNet Bridge - Will the tears of a primary school headmaster in HCM City cause city leaders to rethink their decision to prohibit teachers from holding private tutoring classes?

The Culture & Social Affairs Committee of the HCMC People’s Council is conducting a survey in several districts about extra teaching and private tutoring.

After finishing the survey, it will have a working session with the education and training department to discuss the issue and adjustment of the roadmap to implement a decision on private tutoring bans.

At a meeting with the HCMC People’s Council on August 23, Nguyen Van Loi, headmaster of the Phan Dinh Phung Pedagogical Practices School, said ‘tutoring’ at primary schools, in fact, meant ‘minding children’.

“As parents cannot pick their children up when school hours finish, they want teachers to keep children for more time until they can come,” he explained.

“Our school organizes sports, physical exercises and other activities for students. Those, who don’t like physical exercises will do school work under the guidance of teachers,” he said.

Students go to extra classes because they believe extra lessons will help them pass exams, while teachers give private tutoring because they want to earn more money.

Loi was moved to tears when talking about the private tutoring ban, saying that teachers have to hold private tutoring classes because the salaries paid by the state are not high enough for them to cover basic needs.

Loi went on to say that teachers will have to, one way or another, give extra teaching to earn extra money because the salaries are too modest.

Pham Hung Dung, head of the district 3 education & training sub-department, said that students have demand for extra lessons, and teachers want to give extra teaching.

Students go to extra classes because they believe extra lessons will help them pass exams, while teachers give private tutoring because they want to earn more money.

Prior to that, when surveying schools in district 1 on August 22, the city’s People’s Council also heard that it would be better to allow private tutoring at school.

“Even school headmasters have to send children to extra classes to ensure that they can receive necessary knowledge,” said Ho Thi Ngoc Suong, headmaster of Chu Van An Secondary School in district 1.

“Our school has been organizing private tutoring classes, because only with the extra teaching can we ensure education quality and teachers’ lives,” she said.

Suong said that the curriculum for secondary school students was demanding, while secondary students have to compete fiercely to obtain seats at state-owned high schools. 

“Thanks to private tutoring classes, the percentage of students passing exams at state-owned schools is high,” she said.

L.Anh