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VietNamNet Bridge – The parents who have children aged three or four years
old, now have to bring their children to private nursery schools, even though
the schools always require high tuitions; while the education quality at some
schools is not high.
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Nguyen Thi Thu Hien, Deputy Head of the Education and Training Sub-department in district 9 of HCM City, said that private schools much help in arranging schools for children, when state owned schools are not enough for all children.
Private schools now the only choice
A lot of parents rush to private nursery schools in Thu Duc, Go Vap and Tan Phu to register seats for their children. Having realized the high demand, the private schools hang the boards “registration every day” right at the entrance door, while posting the tuition levels for parents to consider.
The tuitions set up by Bup Sen Hong nursery school in Thu Duc district are between 730,000 dong and less than one million dong a month. The Hoa Phong Lan in Tan Phu district sets up the tuitions at 900,000-930,000 dong. Also, parents will have to pay money for upgrading the material facilities at the beginning of the new school year.
The tuition levels set by the private schools in Go Vap district, including Ngoi Sao Nho School, are between 800,000-850,000 dong a month. The levels are clearly too high for popular workers who have the total income of 2.5 million dong a month on average. However, private schools prove to be the only choice for immigrants who come from other provinces and now work in the enterprises in the city.
When Nguoi lao dong’s reporters came to a private school and said they wanted to register a seat for a four year old child, a teacher said she will accept the child, stressing that there are only 25-30 children in every class taken care by two teachers.
However, worries still exist about the quality of the private schools. An official of the HCM City Education Department admitted that the education quality at some private schools is low, while the tuitions are sky high in comparison with that of state owned schools. However, he added that one should not require high quality nowadays, when the city is seriously lacking schools for children.
According to Chung Thi Bich Phuong, Deputy Head of the Tan Phu district’s education sub-department, private schools have shared the burden with the district’s authorities by offering school seats to children.
The number of schools in Tan Phu district has increased to 19, but they just can provide seats to 1700 children. Meanwhile, 15,000 children now need to go to school. This means that a lot of children will have to go to household run classes.
Tuitions sky high
The HCM City Education and Training Department has promised not to raise the tuitions for the upcoming school year at state owned school years, and try to persuade non-state schools to keep the tuitions unchanged. However, many schools, especially the foreign invested ones, have announced very high tuition levels.
The Vietnam-Australia international school system, for example, has announced the enrolment fee at 2,520,000 dong, and tuition at 67 million dong a year. Besides this, parents also have to pay other money for books and uniforms.
The Vietnam-US School in Tan Phu district has announced the tuition at 135 dollars a month. Meanwhile, the Asia Pacific International School has set the tuition at 300 dollars a month, which does not include the money for material facilities, meals and uniforms.
Le Thi Kim Van, former Head of the Hoa Lu Nursery School in District 1, said that since schools try to keep the tuitions stable, the meals of children at private schools have become less nutritious. Schools have to pay higher for teachers’ wages, for school premises and other expenses; therefore, the money spent on children’s meals is getting smaller.
Source: NLD
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