Many parents who are not certain their children will have seats at “star” schools are getting more and more tense with enrolment in the offing.

In the 2009-2010 school year, Hanoi will enroll some 68,000 children in 1^st class and 78,000 children in 6^th class. General schools have anticipated that the number of students entering first class this year will be very high, because many children were born in 2003, the Year of the Goat, a good year in the minds of easterners. Meanwhile, the number of classrooms and scale of general schools in the city has not increased.

The race for “star” schools proves to be stiff this year, as the city’s People’s Committee has ordered schools to minimise the number of students from other localities (in principle, students have go to schools located in the same district).

H, who lives in Bac Linh Dam residential quarter, showed reporters a list of five schools she wants to send her child to. “The No 1 is the top priority school. If I cannot send my child to that school, I will have to arrange to send him to other schools on the list,” H said.

H, like many other mothers in the city, is willing to pay money to send her child to the best schools in the city. However, in order to get seats at well-known state-owned schools, parents need to lobby with VIPs who can get the children into the schools.

A woman, who is the owner of a tea shop on Nha Chung street in Hoan Kiem district, where two sought-after schools are located, Tran Quoc Toan and Trang An schools, related that she meets people every day who ask information about how to get their children into the schools.

The woman related that she knows a case in which parents paid a lot of money to brokers who promised to help lobby for a seat at Tran Quoc Toan School. However, the brokers left with the money and the child didn’t get into the school.

There, at the tea shop, people whisper in each other’ ears that they have to pay ‘five tickets’ ($500) to book a seat at a well-known school for their child.

Statistics show that there are several tens of state-owned primary schools in Hanoi which are under hard pressure in the enrolment season, as most parents want to send their children to those schools.

These include Quang Trung, Thang Long, Tran Quoc Toan in Hoan Kiem district Kim Lien, Nam Thanh Cong in Dong Da district, Le Ngoc Han and Le Van Tam in Hai Ba Trung district, Kim Dong and Thanh Cong A in Ba Dinh district.

Do Vu, head of the Education and Training Sub-department of Ba Dinh district in Hanoi, related that the schools in the district have to accept students from other districts, who account for 15-20% of total students. At some schools, there are 50 students in every class, while the figure must not be higher 35, in accordance with the current regulations.

Pham Xuan Tien, Head of the Primary Education Division of the Hanoi Education and Training Department, said that parents should not try to send their children to “star” schools at any cost. Forcing children to travel a long distance to get to school is an unnecessary burden on chidren.

“Meanwhile, learning in a class with a large number of students is a disadvantage, as teachers will not have time to take care of all students,” Tien added.

However, it seems that parents have ignored all the advice, trying to solicit for their children’s seats at “star” schools, whether they are located near their homes or not.

VietNamNet/TP