$3,000 for a seat at a ‘star’ school?

Published: 26/04/2009 05:00

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VietNamNet Bridge – Educators warn that if the mechanism for selecting entering classes is not improved, the problem of bribery at famous schools will become more serious.

V is an accountant for a famous company. She described how last year she used an intermediary to bribe her nephew’s way into grade six of ‘T,’ a secondary school in Hoan Kiem district.

At first, her brother’s family forked over $2,000 to the network of the former principal to get the seat. However, in early June, that sum was returned. V was told that the new principal’s policy was to accept only students entering from public elementary schools (V’s nephew had graduated from Doan Thi Diem private elementary school).

However, very soon afterward, V was quite pleased that her nephew got into T High School as the family wished – though at the cost of $3,000.

Meeting her again this year, V said that her nephew had at the end passed the entrance exam of the Hanoi-Amsterdam Public Secondary School. [Under these circumstances], her brother and sister-in-law no longer wished the boy to enter T private secondary school. They returned the $3,000 willingly, she concluded, “saying that T School had lots more kids hoping to enter at that price than they had places for them.”

$3,000 seems to be an incredibly high price to some parents who have children studying at these same prestigious private schools. T is on the staff of the Transport University and is the mother of a former student at private school G in Hanoi’s Ba Dinh District. She related that in 2004, relying on a family connection, she visited the headmaster of G. to ask him to admit her son. After the boy was enrolled, T met the headmaster again to ‘say thank you’ to him, giving him a bag of gifts that included an envelope containing $500.

“When I returned home,” she continued, “I received a call from him. He asked me to come to see him to take back the ‘gift’. I understood what the headmaster wanted. I went to see him again and this time offered an envelope with $700 inside. That shut him up.”

“If the right price was $700 five years ago,’ T observed, “the price now could hardly be less than $1,000.” That is a ‘soft price,’ the going rate for those who have some connection with the school’s leadership. “If you have to go through intermediaries, you will have to pay more,” she said.

More stressful than college entrance exams

“The parents whose children are going to enter the first year of high school this year are really stressed, even more than the parents of children sitting for the college entrance exams. That’s because if your kid doesn’t pass the college test, they can take them again next year” said Quoc, an executive of the Hanoi Retail Petroleum Company.

Quoc said that two years ago, his nephew got in ‘through the back door’ of a famous private school in Hanoi. Though his nephew attended an examination prep class, and he also tipped one of the school’s teachers $300 against the promise of help, the boy still failed to pass the entrance exam.

Luckily, Quoc found and met an important person who was said to have a good relationship with the school’s headmistress. That very night, the big shot escorted Quoc to meet the headmistress at her own home. Even then, they had to wait outside for a couple of hours because some others had already arrived, driving big cars, to plead on behalf of other youngsters for a seat at the school. Not until a few days later, when his nephew’s name was added officially to the new class list, did Quoc breathe a sigh of relief.

The success surprised Quoc himself. A teacher from the same school complained to Quoc several days later that even she could not get a seat at the school for her nephew because the headmaster had strictly prohibited the solicitation of bribes. In fact, though vis-a-vis her staff the headmistress was strict, she still deferred to pressure from outside. In consequence, the school opened this year with more classes than planned.

Quoc said that his own son will enter secondary school this year, and he wants to attend the same school. This child has an advantage – a sibling is already in his third year at the school, and families that have a child at the school already are preferred. Even so, Quoc’s younger child has been enrolled in the preparatory class since its first day. His child will have to take the school entrance exam on June 21.

VietNamNet/TP

Provide by Vietnam Travel

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