It is now time for international schools to enroll students for the new school year which begins in September. Most international schools have announced exorbitant tuition fees.

Students of an international school at botanical garden in HCM CIty

Communication officer of ABC International School said that the tuition here is $5,000 per annum. Here, all subjects are taught in English and students go to school for 13 years to graduate instead of 12 years as stipulated in the Vietnam Education Law.

On the website of the Vietnam-Australia People Founded International School, people would find the information that the tuition fees for high school students are between $615-725 a month, which students pay quarterly. New students also have to pay an enrolment fee of $220 per student.

The enrolment notice of Asia-Pacific International School states that the enrolment fee for the nursery and primary school level is $400, while the fee for high school is $500, which students pay when registering. Meanwhile, tuition fees are collected at the beginning of every semester, $700 a month, and five months for every semester for 12^th grade students. Moreover, 9^th-12^th grade students have to pay $100 for meals every month. As such, students have to pay $8,500 in total for every school year.

However, these schools are ‘cheaper’ than some other schools. Students of APU International High School, for example, have to pay $10,000 in total for nine learning months.

According to Nguyen Hoai Chuong, Deputy Director of the HCM City Education and Training Department, international schools sometimes do not follow regulations strictly, including advertising on mass media. The contents of the advertisement pieces are usually designed to attract students’ parents rather than introduce their actual capability and functions as written down in the licences granted by government agencies.

Chuong said that the city’s education and training department plans to reorganise the international school system and set regulations on the naming of schools in accordance with their functions.

There are now 50 schools which call themselves international schools. Many of the schools cannot meet the standards declared on their licences; however, this doesn’t stop them from setting sky-high tuition fees.

Deputy Chairwoman of HCM City People’s Committee Nguyen Thi Thu Ha has instructed the city’s education and training department to inspect international schools. Under the current regulations, the schools have to teach literature, history and geography according to Vietnamese curricula. Meanwhile, some schools have been said to be teaching no subject according to Vietnamese curricula.

The city’s education department has reported that 23 schools have been established with licences from the Ministry of Planning and Investment, in which 2,400 Vietnamese and 3,400 foreign students are learning. 819 teachers have been teaching at the schools, while most of them have not got licences from the city’s government agencies.

VietNamNet/VH