VietNamNet Bridge – In the eyes of parents, high-quality schools simply mean the schools which require high tuitions.
Hanoi has shown its determination to develop 18 high quality schools in the city in a pilot program. However, people have expressed their objection to the plan, citing the failure of such schools in HCM City.
The story of Le Quy Don High School
Le Quy Don High School in HCM City has been well known for the high quality of teaching and learning. Being a “star” school, Le Quy Don always set very strict requirements on the students. Only those, who get very high marks from the school entrance exams, can enroll in the prestigious school.
As such, Le Quy Don had been automatically considered a “high quality school” before it was assigned to develop into a high quality school within the framework of the city’s program in the 2006-2007 academic year.
The city’s authorities then allowed Le Quy Don to collect VND850,000-890,000 in monthly tuition to make heavier investments to upgrade the material facilities and teaching quality, much higher than the VND30,000 a month level other state owned schools can collect.
Setting sky high tuitions, Le Quy Don still could enroll good students. Only those, who have good marks from the entrance exams, could obtain the seats at the school. Excellent students from well off families all strived to study at the school, because their parents believe the high quality school model would bring big improvements.
When kicking off the high-quality school model, the HCM City Education and Training Department promised that students of the schools would not have to go to extra classes, while their parents would not have to pay extra expenses. It also reassured the parents that the schools would follow the advanced teaching method which allows promoting the aptitude of every student.
However, the commitments have not been fulfilled. Parents still have to pay extra money, besides the tuitions, including the expenses for water use, exam papers, exam question copies… Parents also fulfill the duty of contributing to the school’s and the classes’ funds. Especially, students still have to go to private tutoring classes in order to prepare for the national university entrance exams.
Huynh Cong Minh, former Director of the HCM City Education and Training, the author of the high-quality school model, said at the schools, there are only 30 students in every class, who can go to school both in the morning and afternoon. Especially, the classrooms are well equipped with a computer, an overhead projector, one screen, one printer and 2 air conditioners.
As such, the most visible outstanding features of the Le Quy Don high quality school might be the limited number of students in every class, and the students’ skills of learning in groups and making presentations.
Though there had been no review about the implementation of the high quality school model at Le Quy Don, the HCM City Education and Training Department decided to develop two more schools, Nguyen Du and Nguyen Hien High Schools into high quality schools in the 2012-2013.
The model unfeasible?
Dr. Pham Xuan Hau, former Head of the Education Research Institute under the HCM City University of Education, noted that the high-quality school model still cannot be feasible in Hanoi because the two necessary factors for high quality schools have not been satisfied. The current learning conditions cannot turn into “high quality” overnight. Meanwhile, the quality of the teaching staff remains a big problem.
Hau believes that the model cannot be implemented in the next five years.
NLD