VietNamNet Bridge - The HCM City Party Committee has decided that private tutoring must stop at schools from the 2016-2017 academic year. Private tutoring will only be allowed at foreign language centers and non-school educational establishments. 

It is the teachers’ responsibility to give remedial lessons to weak students, and they must not collect fees from private classes organized by the teachers of the schools.

Many parents complain that their children have to take lessons with the same teachers in the morning at school and in the afternoon at extra classes. 

If their children do not attend extra classes, they will lag behind classmates, because teachers only give important knowledge to students at extra classes.

Because of repeated complaints by parents, the Ministry of Education and Training, Hanoi and HCM City local authorities have set strict regulations to control private tutoring.

However, the regulations face strong opposition from teachers and dissatisfaction from many parents.

A literature teacher of Le Quy Don High School in district 3, HCM City said students demand the lessons.

The HCM City Party Committee has decided that private tutoring must stop at schools from the 2016-2017 academic year. Private tutoring will only be allowed at foreign language centers and non-school educational establishments.

“We only provide extra lessons if there is demand. We don’t force students to go to our extra classes,” she said. “And if you want services, you have to pay for the services”.

She went on to say that at Le Quy Don School, students take private lessons not because they are bad at learning subjects and they need remedial teaching, but they want to prepare for exams to prestigious universities.

“You cannot prohibit teachers from giving private tuition because teachers do this to satisfy students’ demand,” she said.

A high school teacher in Binh Thanh district also stressed that it is the students’ demand to have private lessons, while teachers themselves don’t have demand to give private tuition.

Regarding remedial teaching, she said teachers were willing to do this, provided that they can be paid.

“It is more difficult to teach weak students than good students,” she said.

Meanwhile, a teacher from Tran Dai Nghia High School said he can see problems in the regulation that private tutoring is allowed only at foreign language centers and non-school training establishments.

“Only those with good financial capability can set up such centers. With a limited number of centers, teachers will have to compete with each other to be able to teach at the centers,” he said.

“If so, teachers will have to work for meager wages,” he said.

Van Chung