VietNamNet Bridge – The establishment of high quality schools has been approved by the Hanoi People’s Council. The existence of the schools, which set high tuitions, called the schools for the rich, has raised controversy.

The Hanoi People’s Council on July 6 decided that the ceiling tuition levels for nursery and primary schools in Hanoi in the 2013-2014 is VND2.9 million, while the level is VND3 million for secondary and high schools.

The figures would be VND3.2 million and 3.4 million, respectively, to be applied in the 2014-2015.

There are 18 state owned schools in Hanoi which have been run as high quality schools, including 13 full high-quality, and 5 schools as partial high-quality schools.

The story about the two classrooms of the Nguyen Trai and Thanh Xuan primary schools, which are luxurious and well equipped as the classrooms at international schools has become the hot topic on education forums these days. It is estimated that the total cost for the classrooms is as high as VND300 million.

The noteworthy thing is that the luxurious classrooms have been existing next to the cramped, old and badly equipped classrooms.

The luxurious classrooms have been run under the mode of interaction teaching, the modern teaching model suggested by the Ministry of Education and Training in 2012.

Educators have expressed their worry about the existence of the luxurious classrooms inside state owned schools, saying that this would create the discriminatory treatment among the students.

Dr. Tran Xuan Nhi, former Deputy Minister of Education and Training, violently protesting the model, said that the model should not be applied in the Vietnamese educational system because it would create negative effects to the education environment.

Nhi said on an interview given to Phap luat TP HCM City newspaper that the existence of different kinds of classes at the same school would create different “walks of life” in the learning environment.

He went on to say that if the State cannot “feed” all the state owned schools, it should create favorable conditions to develop private run schools instead of allowing the high-tuition classes in state owned schools to exist which always set reasonable tuitions.

Associate Professor Van Nhu Cuong, a well-known educator, also thinks that the existence of the VIP classrooms at state owned schools would generate the presumptuous students--the ones from the well off families, while this would give other students the inferiority complex.

Also according to Cuong, this may happen that the state owned schools, where there exist the VIP classes, would gather strength on developing the VIP classes, while paying less attention to other classes, which would lead to the bad teaching quality to the majority of students.

Duong Trung Quoc, a historian, a National Assembly’s Deputy, also thinks that it’s not a good idea to establish VIP classes in state owned schools. He said that by doing so, the teachers would teach the discriminatory treatment to their children and students.

Nguyen Viet Can, Head of the Planning and Finance Division of the Hanoi Education and Training Department, said he does not agree with the viewpoint that the existence of high quality schools would create the discriminatory treatment among students.

“There won’t be high quality classes. There would be only high quality schools which would be built on the voluntary basis. And it is quite a normal thing,” he said.

Dat Viet