VietNamNet Bridge – Hanoi will have 109,000 students entering secondary schools in the 2014-2015 academic year, an increase of 20,000 students over last year, according to the Hanoi Education and Training Department.

The students are called “golden goaties” because they were born in 2009, the Year of the Goat, which is considered to be an auspicious year.

Many Vietnamese parents had children that year, and as a result, student enrollment is expected to soar, and, with it, competition for admission.

Thu in Cau Giay District in Hanoi, for example, wants to send her son to a school that has two sessions a day, in the morning and afternoon, because she works at a media company where she has to stay late at the office and take long business trips.

But she said it was difficult to find schools with two learning sessions a day in Hanoi.

“I intended to enroll my child in a private run school in Hanoi, but I am not sure if this is realistic,” Thu said. “All the students will have to sit an entrance test to the school. I am afraid my son will not pass the exams.”

To pass the exams, she takes her son to exam preparation centers and private tutoring classes every day. “He does not have summer holiday, though the academic year has finished, because he needs to prepare for the upcoming exam,” she explained.

Hung, a parent in Linh Dam new urban area, has been feeling anxious for many weeks because he is not sure if his son can enroll in Luong The Vinh School.

“I cannot imagine what would happen if my kid cannot go to the school. We need a school which has good facilities and teaching staff. More importantly, this must be a school that offers lessons in both the morning and afternoon,” Hung said.

Her son, she said, is struggling with the questions on previous exams by Luong The Vinh School. He has to practice solving math questions and Vietnamese language questions with a private tutor.

Hanoians, especially office workers and busy businesspeople, complain that the lack of secondary schools with two learning shifts a day places a burden on parents and children.

There are only a few such schools, namely Cau Giay, Le Quy Don, Nam Tu Liem, Luong The Vinh and Marie Curie, that offer two sessions a day. However, not all students can enter the schools after sitting the entrance exams.

Not only are students preparing for the challenge, their parents also must race for the seats at prestigious schools.

Representatives of Cau Giay, Le Quy Don, Luong The Vinh and Marie Curie schools all have confirmed that the high competition ratios of the schools is 1 to 10 or 1 to 20. This means that one student has to compete with 10 or 20 students to obtain a seat at the schools.

Rumors among parents indicate that Cau Giay Secondary School will only enroll 200 students for the sixth grade this year.

Meanwhile, students who were not classified as “excellent students” at primary school will not be able to enter Le Quy Don School.

Nguyen Hien