Associate Prof Dr Do Phu Tran Tinh, director of the HCM City National University’s Policy Development Institute, said that when interviewing teachers in Binh Thuan, Tay Ninh and Hau Giang as part of a research project, he heard that students’ demand for extra classes still exists. There are three reasons behind this, he said.

First, because of the so-called ‘achievement disease’, many weak students still are allowed to go on to the next form every year, though their knowledge cannot satisfy the requirements to continue to move up. As a result, the students don’t have the basic knowledge to receive new lessons and catch up with classmates. Therefore, parents try to send them to private tutoring classes, where they can review the subject.

Second, modern parents, especially in large cities, tend to place very high hopes on their children and want them to gain brilliant achievements. Attending extra classes is believed to be a solution to obtain good learning records, considered ‘tickets’ for them to enter prestigious schools with high competition ratios and prepare for university entrance exams.

Third, many parents are office workers and factory workers who have to be present at work and cannot pick up their children from school. The solution is leaving the children with teachers. The teachers can give extra lessons and feed them as well.

Many teachers in the interviews said they are aware of parents protesting against private tutoring, but said they need to earn a living when the official pay by the state is modest, which cannot satisfy their basic needs.

They said that parents ask them to run extra classes to improve students’ achievements, and that teachers do not force students or bully them to attend their extra classes.

In fact, many school headmasters know that teachers hold extra classes after school hours, and they keep a deaf ear to this, until they are asked by parents to stop the classes.

Noting that students cannot be ‘forced’ to attend extra classes, teachers said that in the era of high technology and social media, this is impossible.

As many as 63.57 percent of teachers expressed willingness to ‘legalize’ private tutoring, allowing teachers to give extra lessons to earn extra money. If so, teachers could earn a living by teaching students, the job that is honored in Vietnam, instead of having to take extra jobs.

Tran Thanh Nam, Vice Rector of the Hanoi University of Education, told VietNamNet that he supports private tutoring.

“My point of view is that students need to learn more. Though the new general education program aims to promote comprehensive abilities, in the 4.0 era, when human knowledge expands unceasingly, a common curriculum cannot meet the needs of all learners, and personalization is a necessity,” Nam said.

“Talented students need extra classes to intensify their learning capability and heighten their capabilities in certain fields,” he said.

Nam said that private tutoring in a reasonable manner should be allowed.

“Private tutoring is understood that teachers, using their deep knowledge and capability to teach students, create new values and earn extra income in a legitimate manner,” he explained.

This is a better choice than prohibiting teachers from holding extra classes. Instead of taking a lot of jobs at the same time (livestreaming to sell goods, working as real estate brokers, investing in securities, growing vegetables, and participating in cryptocurrency trading floors), teachers can earn extra money with their professional knowledge and skills. 

Prof Tinh noted that the majority of teachers giving extra lessons are primary and secondary school teachers, and the income from subordinate jobs make up 12 percent of their total income.

Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son, when explaining the draft law on teachers on November 20, said the view of the ministry is not prohibiting private tutoring, but prohibiting private tutoring that breaches teachers’ ethics and professional principles. 

Chamaléa Thi Thuy, a National Assembly deputy from NinhThuan, said the demand for attending extra classes exists. Not only weak students, but good students as well want to go to the classes.

Thanh Hung