VietNamNet Bridge – Students cannot understand lessons when they are at official school hours. However, they can easily understand what teachers say at extracurricular classes. That explains why students have to attend private tutoring hours.

At a meeting between the 150 secondary and high school students in HCM City and the representatives from the city’s education and training departments in late March 2013, the students frankly said they have to attend private tutoring classes, if they want to obtain necessary knowledge.

Nguyen Le To Uyen, a student from the Bui Thi Xuan High School, said not all students want to attend extra classes and not all of them are financially cable enough to afford the classes, but they have to.

“We really cannot understand the lessons during the school hours. Therefore, we have to go to private tutoring classes run by the same teachers, to be able to obtain the knowledge,” Uyen explained.

“It’s quite a surprise that we don’t understand the teachers’ words at the official lessons, but we can understand them well at the private tutoring classes,” another student said.

LVL, a 10th grader in HCM City, also said that he did not intend to attend a private tutoring class, but he has to change his mind. “My learning results got worse because I did not understand the lessons. My friends then advised me to go to a private tutoring class run by the same teacher,” he said.

This was really a right decision. “It is so easy to understand at the extra class. The teacher has experience in explaining difficult problems, therefore, I have got good marks for my learning record,” he said. Especially, the student feels satisfactory about the extracurricular learning, because he can practice many math questions at a higher difficulty level.

L and his friends have been whispering in each others’ ears that the teacher deliberately does not show all necessary knowledge at the official classes. Since students don’t understand the lessons, they would have to attend extra classes and pay tuitions to the teacher.

Phan Thu Thao, whose daughter goes to the sixth grade in district 5 in HCM City, confirmed that her daughter is bad at some subjects, because she cannot absorb the knowledge provided by the teacher at the class.

The daughter told her mother that only the students attending the teacher’s extra class can catch up with the curricula and get good marks.

“I have heard that the lessons were very terrible at the official class, but they are very interesting at the extra class,” she said.

A student from Marie Curie High School, who attended the above said meeting between students and the local education department, even posed a question that if this should be blamed on the low income of teachers, which prompts them to “play tricks” to collect extra money from students.

Teachers have of course denied the fact that they deliberately give enigmatic lessons to students to force them to go to extra classes.

Tran Ai Viet, Headmaster of the Nguyen Huu Tho Secondary School in HCM City, said he is not sure if all the students can understand the lessons right at the class. Since every teacher has to take care for 45-50 students, he does not have enough time to give concrete explanations to every student.

Meanwhile, since students have more time at extra classes, they can ask for the explanations from teachers for better understanding.

Tien Phong