LookAtVietnam – Children have been out of school for nearly a month, but many parents are still fumbling to find summer activities to keep them busy.

Children enjoy themselves at a swimming pool in Ha Noi. They could be busy studying during the summer break, but parents often have little time to look after them.

Oanh, mother of seven-year-old Duong Linh Phuong, said that she and her husband had to enrol their daughter in summer school.

They have to work all day and the girl’s grandparents live far away.

“That’s why I had to find summer classes for her. I don’t want to force her to study during the summer and I know she needs some rest and play after a hard school year, but I have no choice,” Oanh said.

“She may have a summer break, but my husband and I do not,” she said.

She added that while her friends advised her to find a nanny, it was not easy to find a suitable one.

Ngo Huong Lan, another Ha Noi resident and mother of a seven-year-old daughter, shared the opinion.

For the first month of summer break, Lan had to find a child-care solution week by week. For the first two weeks of the month, she asked a relative to come and look after her daughter. For the third week of the month, she arranged a trip for the family, and for the fourth week, she had to send her daughter to another relative.

“I don’t want to make her go to summer school, but I think I’ll have to send her to classes next month because there’s no one in the family to look after her,” Lan said.

Lan is just one of many parents rushing to find summer classes for their children.

Finding classes

“It’s not that easy to just come and register for a summer class. It seems like every class is full,” Oanh said.

Le Thu had to set aside the whole morning at the Ha Noi Children’s Palace to register her nephew for summer courses. Just getting to the registration desk involved waiting in a long queue, but finding a vacancy in a suitable class was even harder.

Thu wanted to register him for kung fu and organ lessons, but all the spots were taken. “I had to register my nephew for a cooking class,” she said.

Head of the Ha Noi Children’s Palace’s Training Bureau Mai Thi Kim Hong said the palace had 9,000 children taking classes this summer, double that of other months.

Hong said the palace increased the number of classes from 50 last year to 73 this year. “Hot” subjects included painting, kung fu, behaviours and communication skills, singing, dancing, writing, English and information technology.

Starting in June, the palace had nearly 1,000 parents arriving each day to register their children for classes. Almost all students are in primary school. “We planned to stop enrolling students before June 20. But our classes were full 10 days earlier than scheduled,” Hong said.

But the story does not end when a parent manages to find a free spot for a child. What matters next is the quality of the classes.

Ngo Huong Lan said she had visited five cultural and private centres to find a summer class for her daughter, but she was not satisfied with a single one.

“It was like they just set up these centres for profit during the summer. They know many parents have nowhere to send their children to, and they take advantage of that,” Lan said. She decided to keep her daughter at home.

Mai Lam Tung, from Ha Noi, sent his nine-year-old son to the district’s cultural centre. However, his son was not happy with the painting class.

“He said the teacher only taught students in the class basic steps, but rarely came to each student to give instruction and comments,” said Tung.

However, Tung had to keep his son in the class since he had nowhere else to send him to.

Dr Tran Thu Huong, lecturer at the Ha Noi Social Science and Humanities University’s Psychology Faculty, said in European countries, children often travel for pleasure or take holidays during summer vacation.

While parents work, children are often sent to their grandparents or cultural centres where they can play or learn. “Parents can send them for just a few hours or from morning to night. However, this service is not yet available in Viet Nam,” said Huong.

Huong said subjects like eurythmics, dancing and drama studied for a moderate amount of time would be useful to students over the summer vacation. However, these subjects may be beyond the ability of a primary school student.

“In my opinion, parents should not force children to learn too much. They should give them more time to play. If they want them to absorb more knowledge, they should turn it into a game,” Huong said.

The advice was rational, but people should sympathise with a parent’s dilemma, Be Kim Oanh said.

“If there are summer care centres with useful activities that can make parents feel secure, such as taking children to the countryside, I would probably send my daughter there,” said Oanh.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News