VietNamNet Bridge - Instead of listening to teachers and discussing solutions to improve teaching and learning at school, parents are busy playing with their smartphones at school meetings, as seen in a picture posted on the internet.

A picture has been posted on an education forum with the caption “You may not believe me, but it was a parents’ meeting at a nursery school”.

The person who posted the picture had reasons to fear that netizens would not believe him: the picture showed that all attendants at the meeting looked attentively to their smartphone screens.

Many comments have been made about the image. “The parents absolutely do not respect the teacher,” a forum member commented. 

“This shows the big influence of modern technologies to modern life,’ another member commented. 

The member said that high technologies and smartphones have changed life a lot.

“My neighbor cannot leave her smartphone for any minute. She plays games on phone when she feeds her baby. She talks through the phone with her friends when driving motorbikes to carry her child to school,” she wrote.

Instead of listening to teachers and discussing solutions to improve teaching and learning at school, parents are busy playing with their smartphones at school meetings, as seen in a picture posted on the internet.

“High technologies change people’s attitudes and the way people communicate with each other. As parents do not respect the teacher, they cannot expect respect from others,” she wrote.

Le Thanh Huyen, whose daughter is a third grader at a primary school in Hanoi, said that parents’ meetings depend on the way teachers chair the meetings.

“My daughter’s teacher is very strict with everyone. We were asked to concentrate at the meeting instead of talking to each other,” she said.

“However, we feel satisfied about the meeting. After the teacher briefed on some issues, we discussed this for a short time and made decisions. We did not have to spend too much time on the meeting,” she said.

Meanwhile, some other parents commented that the parents who were playing with their smartphones in the picture should not be criticized.

“You may not know that parents’ meetings are always very boring,” a parent named Hoa told VietNamNet

“I really don’t want to go to such meetings, but I have to go there, or my child will be reprimanded by the teacher,” she admitted.

The parent went on to say that a parents’ meeting is a forum where teachers talk about decisions made by the school. “You’d better not think that you may express your opinions at the meeting,” she said.

The parent once complained about the lack of transparency in the use of the school’s development fund and was later criticized for ignorance.

“Schools convene parent meetings just to talk about how much money parents have to pay, and nothing more,” she concluded.


Chi Mai