VietNamNet Bridge – A series of recent decisions about the English-language curriculum made by the HCM City authorities have left many parents and students confused.

The city’s Education and Training Department had decided to stop teaching English under the Cambridge curriculum and instead use a new integrated curriculum that covers all subjects.

However, the city’s People’s Committee has told the department to not use the integrated curriculum.

Thus, it is still unclear which curriculum will be chosen.

The situation became even more baffling when the UK Consulate General in HCM City denied the assertion made by the HCM City Education and Training Department that the integrated curriculum was compiled with the cooperation of the UK Ministry of Education and the Cambridge International Examinations (CIE).

Parents have been skeptical, assuming the worst -- that the education department may have benefited from using the integrated curriculum and partnering with EMG Education in the English teaching program implementation.

The Lao Dong newspaper quoted a headmaster of a primary school as saying that tuition was $150 a month for the first to third grades, while it was $200 a month for fourth and fifth graders. However, on EMG’s website, tuition is listed as $180 a month.

Meanwhile, Lao Dong’s reporters discovered that the real cost was just $50 per student per month.

Nguyen Van Hieu, deputy director of the HCM City education department,denied that the the department had received a “commission” from the “deal”.

“Only the schools in the city which implemented the program got a discount of 15 percent from EMG,” he said.

Hieu said that the biggest problem of the Cambridge curriculum was that 70 percent of its content coincided with a Vietnamese curriculum, thus creating an extra workload.

In fact, the education department knew of the problem for some time but allowed the Cambridge curriculum to be used because of high demand from parents.

Hieu emphasized that the Cambridge curriculum was not compulsory.

Parents and students can decide whether to follow the curriculum and pay higher tuition for the lessons.

In addition, EMG and CIE had to cancel the contract because the two sides could not reach an agreement.

Since the Cambridge curriculum has stopped, but the integrated curriculum has yet to begin, fifth graders who completed the Cambridge curriculum in primary school, are unsure of what lies ahead at secondary school.

Some primary schools, including Hoa Binh, Nguyen Binh Khiem and Le Ngoc Han, are still using the Cambridge curriculum.

Lao Dong