Many important exams are coming and it is now the time students rush to private tutoring classes. Despite the ban by the Education Ministry, there is still a high demand for tutoring classes.

Students afraid of extra classes

Thu, who lives in the residential quarter at No 62 Nguyen Chi Thanh street in Hanoi, the mother of a fifth grader, related that even though she did not want her daughter to study too hard, she still has to bring her to extra weekend classes.

The extra class is run by the girl’s teacher. This means that the teacher gives Thu’s daughter lessons both in the morning at schools and in the afternoon at her home. N told her mother that she did not want to go to the extra class, because she doesn’t learn anything interesting from the class, except the lessons that the teacher gives in advance (meaning, the teacher teaches the same lessons at school later).

The daughter’s complaints makes Thu embarrassed and she does not know what to do. “If my daughter gives up the extra class, the teacher will think that we think badly of her teaching. This will affect the relation between our daughter and the teacher,” she said.

After being advised by some other parents, Thu made up an excuse so her daughter could be allowed not to attend the class. Thu thought that everything was okay.

However, she was wrong. After Tet, the teacher called Thu many times to talk about her daughter’s grades. “She never called me in the first semester, when my daughter still attended her tutoring classes. I think that she calls me because she wants me to bring my child to the extra class again,” Thu said.

“The teacher will never leave my daughter alone until she returns to the extra class,” she added.

Many other parents were also put in awkward situations as soon as their children stopped going to their tutoring classes. “The teacher asked me frankly why I did not bring my son to the extra class, saying that my son’s grades will never be improved until he attends the class,” a parent related. “I answered that as the class gathered on weekends, when my husband and I still have to work, no one pick up the child from school”. However, the answer didn’t satisfy the teacher, who advised the parent to use taxi motorbikes.

Some days ago, Tien Phong received a complaint from parents of a ninth grade at NT Secondary School in Thanh Xuan district that the teacher of their children organizes extra classes right during official school hours. Each of the 40 students had to pay 720,000 dong for the three weeks of the “intensive course”.

Fear of being repressed

The problem is that despite being tired, students still go to extra classes.

“My son complained that he became afraid of mathematics classes because he has to study too much,” a father said. “But what should I do, if the exams are coming, and the teacher says students have to go to tutoring classes?”

The main reason why parents make their children go to tutoring classes is that they fear their children would be otherwise “persecuted” by the teachers. A staff at NT School in Thanh Xuan district admitted the above mentioned teacher gave half of the students bad marks, because they did not go to the extra class

“The teacher always complained that my child was a bad student. I felt embarrassed and I brought my child to the tutoring class. After that, the teacher has been telling me that my child has made great progress,” Khanh, whose son studies at NTC School in Dong Da district said.

C. V