VietNamNet Bridge – A school in Quang Nam province just have to put 21 students in a special class, because they cannot read and write.

Students in the sixth grade should be between 11 and 12.

School leaders are hoping the special class can get them to the required level so that they rejoin the main class.

“We cannot teach everything in the curriculum for 1-5^th grade students. We just can provide them with the basics,” Chin said.

“Is there any progress in the students’ learning?” the reporters asked teacher Huynh Van Tinh. “They are bad at acquiring knowledge,” he replied.

“I have the right to put them back into normal 6^th grade classes, but I do not, because I am a teacher,” Chin said.

The teachers of the school have to spend extra time teaching the students. The special class is teasingly dubbed “the Harvard class”. The Harvard class has existed since 2006, since Chin took the post of school headmaster.

Chin said the school has to ‘retrain’ 20-25 students every year. If the students of 6/2 class become better, they will be transferred to 6/1 class.

A question has been raised that why the incapable students still could reach sixth grade?

Chin said that primary school teachers say that students had lost all knowledge after a summer holiday. However, Chin does not think so.

“I have many times asked the local education sub-department to tighten the control over the quality of primary school students. But no one has listened to me,” he said.

VietNamNet/VnMedia