VietNamNet Bridge - There are no regulations about high quality kindergartens but a lot of schools in HCMC still introduce themselves as high quality kindergartens, collecting high tuition fees for the committed high quality

Minh Thu, working in Go Vap, HCMC, wants to find a good kindergarten for her daughter. Having read an advertisement in the internet about T.T Nursery School, which was said to be a high quality school, she hopefully did some research about the school to send her daughter. However, she found out that this school is nothing better than normal public schools with a high number of students each class, no playground and only one nanny in charge of a class, but the tuition fee is five times higher than that of ordinary public schools.

Overly high tuition

According to Thu, she has to pay 3 million dongs per month in tuition. This does not include the payment for meals, material facilities upgrading, babysitting in extra hours and coach for carrying children to school. As such, she has to pay 7 million dongs in total for her child’s study at the school. Thu has been told that her daughter will learn computing, swimming and aerobic, but she is not sure if the child can learn all of that since the kid is still so small. “Informatics is not a suitable subject for such small children. Meanwhile, there is no swimming pool at the school. Only if many parents want their children to learn to swim, the school would teach swimming at the nearest swimming school,” said Thu.

Uyen, a mother, came to H.M kindergarten in Tan Binh District, which has advertised itself as a high quality kindergarten to register study for her kid. She got exceedingly astonished when realizing that the school, in fact, was a house which has been upgraded into a school. The narrow corridors have been used as playgrounds for children. Meanwhile, the school requires 1.8 million dongs in tuition, excluding the money for meals and other expenses.

According to education sub departments, a lot of schools introduce themselves as high quality kindergarten but they are just like household run classes or state owned schools. I this case, “high quality school” means “high tuition.” Chung Bich Phuong, Deputy Head of sub department of education and training in Tan Phu District, said that the only difference between state owned and the advertised high quality schools is that the latter schools have air conditioners.

Therefore, she said, all the schools in Tan Phu District labeled as high quality schools would have to remove their plate. In fact, the current legal documents do not mention the concepts “high quality schools.” Hence, it is not clear what school can be named as high quality school.

“High quality school” model being drawn up

Tran Thi Kim Thanh, Deputy Head of HCMC Education and Training Department, said at a recent meeting that the city’s authorities have agreed to set up the model of high quality schools, which aim to heighten the education quality.

However, some educators have voiced their doubts about the high quality school model. Building high quality schools may put a harder pressure on parents to race for high quality schools.

NLD