VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnamese teachers complain that they always bear a too hard pressure in their job and that they have not been respected by the students and their parents as they expect.

A nursery school may receive a threatening gesture, if a parent sees a graze on the hand of his child after the school hours. The image and personal information of a general school teacher could be made public with the support of Internet, if parents do not agree with their children’s teachers. An old teacher may be abused just because he punishes a student for his mistakes. In order to avoid the possible troubles, teachers would rather turn a deaf ear to the students’ problems.

Dr Ho Lam Hong from the Hanoi University of Education has noted that people nowadays tend to think little and scorn of teachers, especially at private schools.

“Parents think that they pay teachers and they have the right to order what teachers need to do for their children,” he said.

A lecturer of the HCM City University of Education also noted that parents nowadays believe they have the right to tell teachers and schools what to do. “They would get boil over with anger just because of a graze on their children’s hands,” she said.

The lecturer said she herself could see with her eyes a colleague who was threatened by a man that he would apply the “law of the jungle” if the teachers did not admit her fault when causing the graze to his child.

Dr Dinh Quang Bao, Head of the Pedagogical Research Institute, has noted that nursery school teachers have a hardest job. They have to work hard at school to take care with tens of children, while they would be scolded just fore minor mistakes.

A teacher in Hanoi, who has special students – autism-suffered children – said that the parents of her students are all very friendly and constructive, because they understand the problems of their children. However, the teacher said she once got a sound scolding from a parent, who commented the teacher could not help anything to the child.

“A child stumbled and fell. And I received a slap on my face from her father. However, the father then apologized for his behavior, because he understood how hard I had to work to help his child,” she said.

A nursery school teacher in Cau Giay district said she has never been threatened by the hot tempered parents. However, she also has her problems. One of the students has a VIP father, who never wants to meet teachers to discuss about the student’s activities at school. The only thing which helped him contact the teacher is the envelop with money inside forwarded to the teacher at the beginning of every academic year.

Headmaster of the Dinh Tien Hoang people-founded School Nguyen Tung Lam has noted that parents nowadays, who are busy all the day with their works, tend to entrust the school with all the works relating to the education. Therefore, they would get angry if they receive the notices about the bad learning records of their children.

Mass media have been criticized heavily for “lending a hand” to the parents to conduct bad behaviors to teachers. Any mistakes made by teachers, even though they are minor, could become sensational stories on local newspapers. A literature teacher of Lomonosov Secondary School decided to resign just because of a mistake in a student’s essay.

Le Huyen