VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has opened to the public the draft regulation on private tutoring, striving to “restore the order” in tutoring activities. However, doubts have been raised that the ministry’s document would not help.

Where there is demand, there will be supply

Vietnamese students could be called the ones who are most eager for learning in the world, because right after school hours in the daytime, they rush into private tutoring classes in the evening.

In fact, the students have no other choice than learning hard. If they don’t, they will not be able to follow the university education in the future.

In the immediate time, if students do not go to extra classes run by their teachers, they would get bad scores from the teachers, which will badly affect their learning achievements.

A lot of teachers at schools are now running private tutoring classes in the evening to get extra income. And in many cases, the students at the tutoring classes are also the students they teach at schools in the daytime.

A parent has revealed that though his child does not really like the teacher, he still has to go to the teacher’s private tutoring class. It is because at the class, the child can know beforehand the questions of the tests for the next days, which allows him to get better scores.

A parent, whose daughter is going to a secondary school in Hanoi, said that her daughter has to go to extra classes four times a week. Therefore, she has to give up other jobs to spend time to bring the girl to school and pick her up from class.

Kim Thoa, who lives in Xa Da residential quarter in Hanoi, said that her son has passed the entrance exam to the Kim Lien High School, a prestigious school in Hanoi after he attended the extra class located in Ha Dong district. Therefore, though the class is far from her home, her son still continues following the class now. The boy has to go far to Ha Dong district five afternoons a week.

Thoa said that she carries the boy to the class and then waits outside for two hours, until the teaching hour finishes. “If my son does not go to private tutoring classes, he would fail the university entrance exam. Meanwhile, studying at university is a must,” she said.

However, not only high school students, who are preparing for the university entrance exams, have to attend extra classes, but primary school students also have to. Especially, even the children of nursery schools also have to go to extra classes, where they are prepared with necessary skills, so that they can pass the exams to prestigious primary schools.

Le Si Tu, a well known educator, former teacher of the Tran Phu High School in Hanoi, where there is demand, there will be supply. Parents really want their children to study as much as possible in order to obtain more knowledge. Therefore, teachers are always ready to help them.

According to Tu, students nowadays are put under a hard pressure. They have to learn hard to pass the exams, and to be able to follow university education.

Believing that it is impossible to prohibit private tutoring, because there is a high demand for private tutoring, Ngo Nguyet Nga from Nguyen Thuong Hien High School in HCM City said that it would be better to think about how to effectively manage the private tutoring.

Source: Lao dong