A recent survey conducted by Huynh Van Son, Dr of Psychology from the HCM City University of Education, shows that speaking ill of others is the most prominent negative behaviour admitted to by today’s students.

Students in a festival

Son found out that speaking ill of other people was the behaviour admitted to by the most students.

720 students from universities in HCM City were surveyed.

The bad behaviour that ranks second is lack of seriousness towards studying.

Hoang, one of the polled students, said that lack of seriousness is something seen in over 50% of students nowadays. “I myself sometimes get tired and downhearted; so, I cannot study with enthusiasm. Sometimes I skip class or some lessons. I know I should not do that, but I still do it,” he said.

Son admits this is contradictory to a desire to succeed in life and business.

Being late to appointments and similar reproachable acts are considered the third most prominent.

Other commonly found bad behaviours of students: getting overly dressed and made up, wearing colourful clothes, squandering money, littering, partying regularly and getting drunk, disrespecting others, cheating on exams.

Son concluded from his survey that students still do not set up their lives based on the original values of an urban civilised lifestyle.

According to Son, when students themselves are not serious in their behaviours and daily relations, they will hardly have an active attitude or correct behaviours towards the community.

Truong Thi Thin

It is true that many students nowadays are not punctual. We will go late to class if we know that lecturers of the subjects are compliant. Sometimes we play truant. However, I don’t think that we speak ill of each other, we just spend time gathering together to gossip.

Dang Van Dat, 2^nd year student at HCM City Medical and Pharmaceutical University

I myself always come to appointments late. In fact, I really want to be on time, but being late has been really my habit and I really find it difficult to fix the bad behaviour. I dare not play truant, because the curriculum is very heavy.

Vu Thi Thanh Binh

I don’t think that there is a high rate of students who always speak ill of others. I think that students simply like chatting with friends and making comments about someone or something, like “this girl is now dating that boy”, or “in my class, A learns well, while B is lazy”.

Cam Quyen