VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnamese parents, concerned about their children’s character development, have expressed outrage after learning that their children are being taught to lie. The culprit: their teachers.

Returning from school, Mai, a third grader, informed her mother: “We will receive inspectors tomorrow. My teacher told us to prepare well for this”.

When her mother asked how the students needed to prepare for the event, she received an unexpected reply.

“My teacher told me not to tell the inspectors that the teacher runs a private tutoring class,” Mai answered.

No student would dare to disobey the teacher’s instruction, and risk receiving bad marks.

Mai’s teacher is not atypical. Despite a ban by the education ministry, many teachers continue to conduct private tutoring lessons for their students. Hence Mai’s teacher was just trying to avoid getting into “hot water” if the inspectors learned the truth. But Mai’s mother said she was shocked that the teacher would compound her transgression by encouraging all her students to lie on her behalf.

Lan, 45, who has a son going to a “star” primary school, complained that children’s characters are being tarnished by those educators who teach them to tell falsehoods.

“We always tell my child that he must not lie to parents and adults, and that he needs to admit his mistakes rather than fib about them. However, his teachers are instilling other principles in him,” Lan complained.

“His teacher every day repeats the request that students say ‘no’ if someone asks about private tutoring lessons,” she said.

Hien, a housewife, commented that students nowadays “have to tell lies” for many reasons.

Hien recently decided not to let her daughter participate in a semester-end school excursion. The girl was told to write a note asking for permission not to join the trip. However, while the daughter’s reason for staying home was simply that she didn’t like such excursions, the girl felt compelled to lie, writing that it was illness that was causing her to opt out.

“My daughter had to claim that she could not participate in the school’s extracurricular activity because of illness, not because she found the excursion too unattractive,” Hien said.

Hien’s daughter was not the only student refusing to take the trip that day. Others also had to write reports explaining why they did not join in the activity.

Consequently, some had to “brainstorm” to think of good excuses to relate to the school’s management board. Since Hien’s daughter was already playing the infirmity card, another girl said he had to return to her home village to visit her grandparent.

One other claimed he had to attend his grandfather’s funeral. In fact, the grandfather had died one month earlier.

“Now I can understand why my friends keep complaining that their children are always telling lies or forging their signatures,” Hien said. “If their children make mistakes or tell lies at school, parents have to come see the teacher. However, when the teacher lies, nobody gets punished.”

Tien Phong