VietNamNet Bridge - Educators, parents and policy makers have blamed each other for the problem of students ‘sitting in the wrong class”. The phrase is commonly used in Vietnam to describe students whose knowledge is not adequate for their school grade.

The debate began after secondary school students in Huong Hoa District in the central province of Quang Tri were found illiterate.

The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has confirmed the illiteracy of the students in the locality reported by local newspapers.

The ministry sent its staff to A Tuc Primary School and A Doi Secondary School in Quang Tri province for an inspection tour.

The inspectors found three students able to write some simple letters and unable to read. The three students were recognized as disabled.

They also found that Ho Xuan Luat, a student who was confirmed as regularly absent from school, still received credit for being a “good student”.

Meanwhile, the three seventh graders Ho Van Thang, Ho Van Nho and Ho Van Hom could only do very simple math operations and did not have the knowledge seventh graders need to have.

On April 10, MOET’s Deputy Minister Nguyen Vinh Hien sent dispatches to the Quang Tri provincial Education and Training Department and the education departments in 63 cities and provinces, requesting to “take action” to stop the “sitting in wrong classes”.

“This is not the first time MOET has released such an instruction. But the problem still exists,” a parent in Cau Giay District in Hanoi said.
 
Who is to blame for the students’ illiteracy?

Nguyen Tung Lam, headmaster of Dinh Tien Hoang High School, a renowned educator in Hanoi, in an interview given to a local newspaper, commented that it is the teachers who need to take responsibility.

Lam believes that teachers must understand their students’ abilities the most. And they are in the right position to determine who can move up to the next grade and who cannot.

“They (the teachers) did not report the cases to the school management boards and did not take necessary measures to help the students,” he said.

In reply, a teacher from the central region, in an email to Giao Duc Vietnam’s editorial board, wrote that it is unreasonable to blame the problem on teachers, because teachers do not have the right to ask students to repeat classes.

“No matter how bad students’ learning records, we have to let them move up to the next grade, because we need to do what we are told to do,” the teacher wrote.

Thanh Mai