A meeting was held March 25 between education officials, teachers and high school communist league secretaries in Ho Chi Minh City to discuss school violence.

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Violence among students, low awareness of environmental hygiene, and an overload of schoolwork were discussed at the meeting. Education officials said they worried students no longer had a sense of sympathy and compassion because the students seen in the latest video appeared apathetic and desensitized to fighting.

High school students at the meeting complained that schools and families have ignored the issue of violence for too long. Some ill-behaved pupils come from dysfunctional families who paid little to attention to them, they said. Moreover, schools also ignore such students and treat them as “un-teachable” due to their behavioral problems, which only worsens the problem.

Well-regarded students at the meeting proposed holding conferences to listen to students’ opinions and ideas, and said they should be taught about violence prevention at such meetings. Ethics teaching should focus on simple moral lessons rather than dry, theoretical content, they added.

Students also said they are under much pressure to achieve high grades to meet their families’ expectations while the intense curriculum exhausted them. Educators, meanwhile, struggle to improve their teaching styles because they too are overloaded in trying to cover the full curriculum.

Le Hong Son, deputy director of the city’s Department of Education and Training, said HCMC will cut some irrelevant lessons in the curriculum to reduce pressure on teachers and students.

VietNamNet/SGGP