VietNamNet Bridge - A nursery school in Hanoi has asked parents to buy 10 books for their 3-year-old children, though the children cannot read.

Thanh Nien newspaper reported that all the children of the Dai Thinh Nursery School in Me Linh district in the suburbs of Hanoi were asked to buy 10 books ‘for reference’, worth VND75,000. 

A parent complained that she could not understand why 3-year-old children were asked to buy books if they still could not read.

When reporters contacted Vu Thi Nhat, headmaster of the school, they heard very rude words.

“Will you write articles and post in newspapers about this? I will sue you. It is a request from the education sub-department. Did parents give you money and tell you to write articles?” Nhat said.

An analyst commented that the nursery school might want to try to produce child prodigies, and that was why it forced children at the age of three to read books.

In late September, Le Van Vuong, the headmaster of a secondary school in Van Ha Town of Thieu Hoa district in Thanh Hoa province surprised thousands of students when unexpectedly naming a name of a parent at the flag saluting ceremony.

The parent’s name was called at the ceremony just because she expressed her disagreement with the school’s decision on the school fees students had to pay.

Van Ha School informed parents at a parents’ meeting when the new academic year began that they had to pay for overhead projectors (VND3 million per class), class fund (VND60,000 per student) and for ‘education socialization’ (VND300,000 per 9th grader). 

The parent complained that the required amount of money was too high, and her opinion was written in the meeting’s minutes, while she was named at the flag saluting ceremony where hundreds of students attended.

The naming made her child – a student at the school – feel ashamed. Now everyone knows that the student’s parent was the only one who disagreed with the school’s decision.

Parents complain that they have been burdened with tuition and school fees which have been increasing steadily year after year.

Parents of 45 first graders in one class of the Vo Thi Sau Primary School were asked to pay VND150 million at the new academic year. The money has paid for a TV, worth VND11.8 million, a wardrobe to keep students’ pillows, bookshelves and some other items.

“Foreigners, if hearing this information, may think Vietnamese students are all from rich families. They don’t know that I can earn VND5 million only a month,” he said.

Dat Viet