VietNamNet Bridge – “Vietnamese students nowadays are treated as if they are God,” a private school teacher commented.

The teacher, who left a state-owned school three years ago for a private school, said she now regrets the move.

It was the promise of better pay and job promotion opportunities that motivated her to become a private school teacher. Now, however, she now feels she’s gone from the frying pan into the fire. To be sure, she enjoys a better salary. But she faces the constant risk of getting sacked should she step on the wrong student’s toes.

“They (the members of the school’s board of management) take sides with students in conflicts between teachers and students,” the teacher explained. “They would rather dismiss a teacher than lose a student, because students’ tuitions feed them”.

“You just need to do one thing wrong or pronounce something in English inaccurately to become the target of students’ ridicule and criticism,” she continued.

The headmaster of a primary school in HCM City’s District 4 affirmed that not only private school teachers, but teachers at state-owned schools as well, have been vilified by students and their parents.

During a physical exercise lesson, the teacher asked a student to stand in line, but received swearwords from the student.  The student’s parents were asked to come meet the teacher to discuss how to handle the disobedient boy. However, the boy’s mother came not to discuss anything with the teacher, but to beat her and smear her good reputation.

“The parent also threatened to ‘take actions’ if the teacher ill-treats her son and if her son cannot move up to the next grade,” the headmaster said. “She said she would make a film and ask for newspapers to get involved. She really offended us.”

“We are incurring the hammer and the axe of public opinion. Teachers are at fault in all cases,” she complained.

A literature teacher of a Vietnamese-owned international school in HCM City said she has grown tired of her profession.

“When I asked a student to be quiet and concentrate on the lesson, I was advised by the student that I should not be too strict, or I would be sacked,” she said.

“The student reminded me that his tuition is even higher than my month salary, and that teachers like me are living on the money they pay,” she continued.

Nguyen Van Ngai, former Deputy Director of the HCM City Education and Training Department, confirmed that teachers are now under severe pressure.

All the teachers’ behaviors and words can be filmed or recorded with smartphones by the students, who could then post the clips on the internet. As a result, many teachers complain that they cannot behave naturally during their lessons. The existence of high technology devices, to some extent, is spoiling the schooling atmosphere.

“Students nowadays think that they are the benefactors of teachers. Therefore, they tend to defy teachers,” Ngai commented.

“I agree with the viewpoint that students have the right to disagree with teachers, but this does not mean that they can talk back to their teachers,” he said.

NLD