VietNamNet Bridge – Under the current regulations, every class at nursery and primary schools must have no more than 35 students. However, most of the state owned schools in Hanoi cannot meet the requirements.

Thuy Nga, whose son goes to the Dich Vong Kindergarten, complained that only four teachers take care for 70 children in a class, which makes her feel worried. However, she has no other choice than bringing the son to the school, because she cannot afford the high fees set up by private schools.

Do Thoa, whose daughter goes to the Chim Non Kindergarten in Hai Ba Trung district, also said that there are 61 children in the class, while there are only three teachers.

Thoa said that at the beginning of the year, the number of children in the class was lower. However, the school continuously received more and more children after the new school year opening. Meanwhile, it was too late for Thoa to apply for a seat for her daughter at another school.

State owned primary schools are always in a state of overloading. Since there are too many students in a class, students cannot receive adequate care from teachers. Meanwhile, teachers also complain that they have to take on too many works. A parent in Thanh Cong residential quarter also said there are 50 students in his son’s class.

The classes at Kim Lien, Nam Thanh Cong and Cat Linh have also been overloaded with the number of students in every class higher by two times than the allowed level.

Teachers exhausted, children bored

There are 857 nursery schools and 12,857 household run classes in Hanoi, which take care for 368,700 children. Meanwhile, there are only 660 state owned nursery schools.

As for primary education, there are 656 state owned schools, while the demand is very high.

Secondary schools have also been overloaded. Bui Tu Ngoc, an English teacher of the Giang Vo Secondary School, said that in principle, there should be only 36-48 students in a class for English lesson. Meanwhile, she alone has to teach 50-60 students at the same time.

As a result, teachers feel too tired and unenthusiastic, while students get tired of lessons, especially on hot days. Ngoc said in principle, the ideal schooling environment would be created only with small classes with 20 students in each.

Explaining the overloading of students, Ngoc has attributed to the parents’ desire to bring their children to “star schools”. Besides, Hanoi is seriously lacking state owned schools, while private schools always require high tuitions.

“Parents always tend to apply for star schools. Meanwhile, I believe that except some special schools, the education quality of the schools is nearly the same,” Ngoc said.

Parents have been warned that this would do more harm than good to bring children to star schools. They should not expect high education quality for their children, if there are too many children in a class which makes it unable for teachers to take care for all of them.

Meanwhile, physicians have warned that cramped classrooms would cause a lot of diseases to children. Scientists have recently rung the alarm bell over the rapid increase of the students suffering eye-relating diseases, especially in big cities, where there are many students and few schools.

There are 2434 schools in Hanoi, including 546 schools which can meet national standards. There are 46,300 classrooms with 1.6 million students and 110,400 officers. There are 371 non-state education establishments.

Thanh Mai