VietNamNet Bridge - Many students are shocked when they move up to the sixth grade as they are unfamiliar with the scoring and exams applied by secondary schools. Therefore, they have to learn  to fill in gaps in knowledge.

Nguyen Thu Ha in Dong Anh Town in Hanoi was very proud of his son who always received compliments in the last five whole years at primary school for ‘excellently fulfilling the task of learning’. 

Therefore, she was astonished as the child’s learning capacity unexpectedly fell when he went to the sixth grade.

Ha said in the first semester of the 2015-2016 academic year, the child usually had 5-6 scores for nearly all of his school works. The year-end tests were also unsatisfactory and he was an ‘above average’ student for the sixth grade after being ‘excellent’ student for the five years before.

“We were shocked as his scholastic achievements went down so dramatically,” she said.

When Ha met the son’s teacher, she realized that a lot of students in the same class met the same problems. 

Many students are shocked when they move up to the sixth grade as they are unfamiliar with the scoring and exams applied by secondary schools.

“The teacher told me that many students could not adapt to the new circumstances when they entered the sixth grade. At primary school, students did not get marks for their school works, but they only received comments. Therefore, they cannot be familiar with the scoring mechanism at secondary school,” Ha said.

Ha decided that her son has to spend all his time in the summer holiday to go to private tutoring classes.

“My son did not have to learn hard when he was at primary school, so he must now,” she complained.

Being a primary school teacher and having a daughter who is going to the sixth grade after the holiday, Tran Thi Huong, a teacher in Thach That district in Hanoi, understands the challenges the girl will have to face.

“Students will meet many difficulties when they enter the sixth grade because of big changes in the study environment,” she said. “They will have to learn with higher intensity, have more subjects and have stricter tests.”

The teacher noted that the pressure on students was worse since the Ministry of Education and Training’s Circular 30 took effect some years ago. 

The circular, about changes in student assessment method, was released with an aim to help ease the pressure on primary school students. MOET argues that primary school students should not be overloaded with school works and duties.

However, since students don’t bear pressure when going to primary school, they meet difficulties when entering secondary school.

Tien Phong