VietNamNet Bridge – More and more students are “sitting in the wrong classes”, placed in a higher grade that does not suit their learning capabilities.
“When I attended a parents’ meeting at school two years ago, I realized that my son was still very bad at writing and reading. So I asked the teacher to allow him to repeat the second grade. But the teacher said the boy needs to move up to the next grade,” said Cuong, the father of Vu Dang Quang Minh, a fourth grader at Chi Lang Primary School in District 6 in HCM City.
“It takes my son a lot of time to read one page of a book, and he regularly makes mistakes,” Cuong said. “However, the teacher said Minh’s learning records were good enough to move him up to the next grade.”
A test given by reporters to Minh showed that he took three minutes to read a sentence with 20 words, while he made mistakes with about one-third of the words.
And he could not write words, including his name, correctly, or solve math questions designed for children at his grade level.
Vo Thu Tam, headmaster of the Chi Lang Primary School, said Minh was one of 36 students at the school under an integrated education model reserved for students with mental retardation, physical impairments or autis.
The students are allowed to take up to three years to fulfill the curricula for one grade.
However, Minh’s grade-point average was good enough to move him to the next grade
Minh, whose grades were poor in the previous four academic years, had improved in the second semester of the fourth grade, with exam marks of 5 or higher.
However, the marks in the record truly reflect the boy’s actual ability?
A similar situation exists in central Nghe An Province. Three months ago, Son, a parent in Thanh Chuong District sent a letter to the district’s education sub-department complaining that his daughter, Nguyen Thi Le, a third grader, still could not read and write well.
After Son discovered that his daughter could not even read the names of TV programs, he visited Thanh Van Primary School and asked the teachers to allow her to repeat the first grade. But they refused, forcing him to turn to the education sub-department.
Le Thi Huong, a history teacher at a prestigious school in Hanoi, said on Infonet that she was not surprised at Minh’s and Le’s situations, saying that students “sitting in wrong classes” can be seen not only in rural or remote areas but also in Hanoi.
Huong said the majority of Vietnamese teachers want their pupils to have high marks, as high learning achievements well on the teachers..
NLD