Nguyen Thi Thanh, 46, from Cau Giay district in Hanoi, sighed with relief recently as her son had obtained a seat at Hanoi University of Foreign Languages. She was happy as she said she made the right decision spending VND100 million to fund her son’s study to prepare for IELTS from sixth to 12th grades, which helped him gain a 6.5 score.

“My son could not gain 37/40 scores to apply for the faculty he wanted. His high school learning records were not really good and the aptitude test score was low. If he had not had the 6.5 IELTS score, he would not have gained a seat at a top-tier university,” she explained.

Thanh’s son began learning to prepare for IELTS in the sixth grade. He had two lessons a week at a well known foreign language center. The center provides a 4-year training program to students with the commitment that learners will get at least 6.5 IELTS score after finishing the program. 

“At the center, he had many opportunities to communicate with native speakers. He was also prepared with presentation skills, so he became self-confident about his ability,” Thanh said.

Some months before the IELTS, Thanh realized that her son was not confident enough and decided to send him to a 3-month crash course which cost VND9 million, where he learned with Vietnamese teachers. Though the score of 6.5 was lower than expected, it was high enough for her son to apply for a good university.

Bich Van, 38, from Hoang Mai district in Hanoi, has just registered her son, an 11th grader, for a class of English at a foreign language center near her home.

“He will study there for one year to gradually improve his English from 2.0 score now to 6.5 score,” she said.

Asked about the tuition, she said the quoted tuition is VND38 million, but she will pay VND30 million under a promotion program.

The boy expects to obtain 6.5-7.0 IELTS score if he commits not to be absent from lessons, do all exercises, and attend all mock exams.

According to Van, her son began learning to prepare for IELTS in the 11th grade, but he has been attending extra English classes since he entered secondary school. 

In Vietnam, students begin learning foreign languages at schools in the national educational system when they enter third grade.

She revealed that spending money on her son’s English classes was a top priority. Even if the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) no longer uses IELTS certificate to enroll students in universities, the spending will still be useful as it helps her son improve his English skills, which is indispensable in modern times.

Like Thanh and Van, other parents are willing to empty their pockets of their contents to fund their children’s English training courses to prepare for IELTS. The movement has become stronger recently as some high schools and universities tend to use students’ IELTS results to enroll students.

There are numerous training courses for IELTS in the market, with costs from several million dong to hundreds of million of dong, depending on the fame of foreign language centers, teachers and especially the centers’ commitments to students’ outcomes.

Pham Hung Thuyen, a lecturer of the University of Foreign Languages, a member school of Thai Nguyen University, and a teacher of English at some foreign language centers, said that 40 percent of students registering training courses for IELTS are high school students and 99 percent of them learn English to attend IELTS and get certificates for application for university.

However, Thuyen noted that the majority of the students have low English skills. This is attributed to the teaching method now applied at public general schools which focuses on grammar lessons. The students are good at grammar, but cannot speak and write fluently.

Thuyen commented that most parents hope their children can obtain high IELTS scores, but most of them choose the wrong way to follow.

He stressed that the preparation for IELTS should be made only by students aged 14 or higher who have some certain knowledge about social and academic topics. IELTS preparation is useless to small children and is even harmful to them.

Thanh Hung