Vietnam - International schools not ideal education centers at all

More and more students want to leave international schools in HCM City and return to state owned schools. However, many of them have been refused by state owned schools, which believe that the learning capacity of the students from international is bad.

In the past, parents once rushed to bring their children to international schools, believing that their children need intensive English lessons and a modern education environment. Meanwhile, they now do the opposite – bringing the children back to state owned schools.

“International school” in Vietnam is understood as the schools founded by Vietnamese or foreign institutions or individuals. The schools can follow either the Vietnamese or foreign curricula, but the most important characteristic of the schools is that students have more English lessons than students of Vietnamese schools.

The wave of leaving international schools for state owned schools

A stack of notebooks was seen on the table of the Deputy Headmaster of the Luong Dinh Cua Primary School in district 3 in HCM City, two days after the new academic year opening September 5. Nguyen Dat Su, Deputy Headmaster of the school said that these were the notebooks of 10 students, who have just moved there from international schools.

Next to the stack of notebooks, one could also see an application form from a parent, who asked the school’s management board to allow his son, Cong Danh, to repeat the first grade.

Dinh Thien Can, Head of the Go Vap district’s education sub-department, has confirmed that many parents have decided to move their children from international schools to state owned schools. It is because the parents cannot afford the increasingly high tuitions set up by the international schools.

Nguyen Quoc Viet, the parent of Nguyen Phuong Mai Yen, who has moved from an international school to the Luong Dinh Cua Primary School, said that he has to make the decision because he cannot afford the high tuitions which increase steadily year after year.

Another parent said that the tuitions prove to be affordable for first and second grades, about 1-2 million dong a month. However, the tuitions for the next grades are higher by 20-40 percent. Every 4th grader has to pay 4 million dong a month, while a secondary school student would have to pay 10 million dong a month.

According to the district 1’s education sub-department, in 2010, more than 70 students moved from international schools to state owned schools. Meanwhile, the number of such students is lower this year, because state owned schools do not have enough seats for all.

The same situation can be seen in districts 5 and Go Vap.

International schools’ students’ learning capacity bad?

Meanwhile, educators do not think that parents have to bring their children back to state owned schools because they cannot afford the high tuitions.

Vu Thi My Hanh, Headmaster of the Luong Dinh Cua Primary School, said that every seven out of the 10 students moving from international schools “have problems” in learning capacity. After testing the students, the school decided to ask some of them to repeat the first grade.

Dang Thanh Tuan, Head of the Go Vap district’s education sub-department, has affirmed that the quality of students of international schools cannot be as good as that of the students of state owned schools. It is simply because the students at state owned schools learn harder than the students of international schools. Therefore, state owned schools do not want to receive the students from international schools, because teachers will have to spend time to tutor the students.

Vo Ngoc Thu, Head of the district 5’s education sub-department, noted that the English skill of the students from international schools is good, but they are bad at Vietnamese. Many of the students have been found has regularly making mistakes in dictations.

Nguyen Chanh, a businessman, said that he has moved his two children from an international school to a state owned school. He said that previously, he brought the children to the international school because he wanted them to have more opportunities to practice English. However, he has changed his mind. “Now I want them grow up like other children who have multi-sided knowledge,” he said.

Source: NLD/ VNN

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