VietNamNet Bridge – A lot of parents complain that the education market is now like a “bear garden,” where it is so difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood.

Every parent, who has children at schooling ages, suffers headaches, because they do not know what schools they should bring the children to.

State owned schools have become overloaded with poor material facilities and numerous students in every class.

Meanwhile, no one can say for sure about the education quality of people-founded schools. While private primary schools have to organize competitions to select students, secondary and high private schools cannot attract students. People believe that private schools are reserved for bad students, while good students would prefer studying at state owned schools.

Poor parents would not choose international schools for their children, because they cannot afford the sky high tuitions set by the schools.

Meanwhile, the rich parents do not think much about the high tuitions, but they keep doubtful about the education quality provided by international schools. Local newspapers have cited examples to prove that not all international schools can provide education service which meets “international standards.”

A parent said the first article he red early yesterday morning is the one on Tuoi tre newspaper about the former President of the Quy Nhon University, who got the 4-year jail sentence for illegally collecting 18.5 billion dong from 22,000 students.

Tran Tin Kiet, the former president, was once discovered as “deliberately breaking the state’s regulations on economic management and causing serious consequences” in 2006-2008. However, he was merely sentenced to 15 months’ probation, and he still was on the position of President for two more years, until 2008.

The parent said local newspapers have repeatedly reported the wrongdoings in the education sector, which has made him feel anxious. How can the children be grown up into useful citizens of the society, if their teachers are the ones like Kiet?

Gia Dinh & Xa hoi newspaper reported that parents have got angry when their children, the students of an international school which set the sky high tuitions of 300 million dong a year, have to have frugal meals at the school. Meanwhile, the curriculums have been changed regularly.

Nguyen Nam, a parent in Cau Giay district, who has a daughter going to the S International School, said that earlier this academic year, the school decided that Chinese language must be a curricular subject. After that, the school began teaching mathematics and science subjects in English. Especially, the school has cut the lessons for physical exercises.

Nam complained that though parents have to pay high tuitions, their children still cannot enjoy good material facilities. No one knows about the qualification of the teachers. All of the teachers reportedly have university degrees, but it’s still unclear what universities they graduate from.

No state management agency comes forwards and supervises the education quality of international schools. Therefore, children have become the “white cats” that serve the experiments of the new training models, the result of which remains unclear.

Hundreds of students of Melior School in HCM City have been put on tenterhooks because the school has suddenly shut down. Meanwhile, they still have not received the answers from management agencies about the measures to help students take back the hundreds of millions of dong in tuitions.

GDVN