Primary schools will only begin enrolling first graders for the 2013-2014 academic year in June. However, urban parents have been moving heaven and earth for the last several months to scramble for the seats for their children at schools.

Educators have anticipated that primary schools would get overloaded with first graders, who were born in 2007. The number of children given birth in the year of “golden pig” was abnormally high because Vietnamese parents believed this was a lucky year for people. And it’s now the time for the children, now six years old, begin going to school.

TL, a parent in Hoang Mai district, said there is merely no more opportunity to enroll in star schools. “The schools have been overloaded already, because parents began enrolling some months ago already,” she said.

L said she began looking for the school for her daughter in November 2012, and she luckily received the support from a relative. “I had to pay VND30 million dong for a seat at KL Primary School,” she said.

She now can sigh with relief because she surely has got a seat at the school. Meanwhile, the parents in the same residential quarters have been put on tenterhooks, because they are not sure if their children can enroll in good schools. The parents have heard that some schools would organize lucky draws to choose students, because of the overly high number of students applying for studying at the schools.

Hong Van, a parent in Cau Giay district, still thinks about what school to send her daughter to. In principle, her daughter would have to go to Ba Trieu Primary School, because her registered residential address is in Hai Ba Trung district. However, in fact, she now lives in a rent house in Cau Giay district. Therefore, the daughter would have to travel a long distance from Cau Giay district to the Ba Trieu School.

Van has been told to enroll the daughter to the KD School, a good one which is not too far from his house in Cau Giay district. However, Van has heard that she would have to pay tens of millions of dong for a seat there.

“I’d rather send my child to a private school and bear higher tuition than paying tens of millions of dong for the underground fee,” Van said.

Quang Trung, Thang Long Schools in Hoan Kiem district, Kim Lien, Nam Thanh Cong Schools in Dong Da district, Le Ngoc Han and Le Van Tam Schools in Hai Ba Trung district, Kim Dong School in Ba Dinh are the best known schools in Hanoi which every student dreams of going to. 

Parents whisper in each others’ ears that in order to obtain the seats at the schools, parents not only need to pay big money as the “enrolment fee,” but the students need to be proficient in writing and reading before entering the schools.

It is a growing tendency that children practice writing and reading at private tutoring classes before they enter the first grades. The parents in urban areas believe that their children need to get familiar to the education curriculum before they begin going to primary school, so that they would not be shocked in a new schooling environment.

Vietnamnet