While the HCM City Education and Training Department is still discussing the plan to install cameras at kindergartens in order to reduce abuses, many private kindergartens have moved ahead.

 

 

When choosing kindergartens for their children, many parents nowadays consider the cameras installed at the schools as an advantage. They say that this will allow them to keep close watch over the activities of their children, and as they will be less worried, they will be able to concentrate on their work.

Nguyen Thi Huyen, who lives in Phu My Hung area in District 7, HCM City, said that she takes her 3-year-old child to a private nursery school, where cameras are installed. “Thanks to the cameras, I can see how my child plays, eats and sleeps. More importantly, with cameras there, teachers will not dare to do anything bad to my child,” she said.

Le Hoang Thanh, who takes her child to a kindergarten in District 3, said that she has many times suggested that the school installs cameras in the classrooms. Like many mothers, Thanh wants to know how her child plays and studies at the school, and especially, she wants to know if her child can integrate with other classmates.

Nguyen Thi Binh, Headmaster of Tre Tho Kindergarten in Tan Binh District, said that parents have been very satisfied with the latest decision to install cameras. A mother, who is now living and working in Singapore, leaving her child at home with her grandmother, wrote that thanks to the cameras, she can see her child every day from the distance of thousands of kilometers.

However, while parents applaud the decisions to install cameras at schools, teachers seem to “hate” the cameras. Nguyen Thi Phuong Mai from Kindergarten No 14 in District 10, said that cameras make teachers feel that they are put under supervision.

“Teachers perform their duties well out of their sense of responsibility, not because they are supervised,” Mai said.

“There is no camera at my school, but the board of management has been maintaining a very strict management system. I do not think cameras are necessary in this case,” she added.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Thi Mai Lien, Headmaster of Hoa Sen private nursery school in Go Vap District, has warned that cameras would put pressure on teachers. They would feel as if they are not respected and need to be supervised.

“I think that installing cameras is an anti-educational measure which shows the incapability of educators,” she said.

Lien fears that if cameras become a requirement at all schools, many teachers would give up the job.

“The job does not pay well. And additionally, they have to bear too much pressure,” Lien said

A parent, though advocating the installation of cameras at schools, agrees that teachers can only undertake their work well if they have a good sense of responsibility for their work, and therefore, cameras will not help much.

She also said that installing cameras will be costly. In general, a school needs six cameras for six classrooms, a server and screens. All of these equipments will cost 100 million dong, not including the maintenance fee.

“Installing cameras means that parents will have to pay additional money,” Lien has warned.

Meanwhile, Tuoi tre newspaper has reported that many teachers of Anh Cau Vong School had given up the job after 2-3 days of working there, because they could not bear the pressure. A teacher of the school said every teacher had to receive at least 15 calls a day from parents.

There were many reasons that prompted parents to call to teachers. “Where is my child? Why can’t I see my child?” a mother asked. “He is lying at the corner, and the camera cannot view on him,” the teacher answered.

“Did my child have lunch? I see you feeding T all the time, not my child”; “Why does my child stand up against the wall? “ – “No, he is drawing on the wall, not standing against the wall”….

Thai Phuong