The new regulation that school headmasters now have the right to make decisions on allowing students to skip grades has raised the worries that this would lead to a race among parents who rush to bring their children to school before age.

From May 15, the new Circular No 12 has replaced the Decision 07, dated April 2007, on the operation regulations of grammar schools. The new legal document stipulates that the students, who have good physical conditions and have intelligence developing early, can start going to school before age or skip classes. Headmasters of schools will have the right to make final decisions about this.

Professor Pham Minh Hac, Chair of the Scientific Council for Educational Psychology, former Minister of Education and Training, commented that in other countries in the world, the learning before age or skipping classes are not encouraged, while parents in the countries also do not want their children to skip grades, because hard working would prevent students from promoting their abilities in the best way

He said that psychologically, it does not have much significance in going to school before age. There are “child prodigy” cases, where students begin the university studying at the age of 13-14. However, in reality, only a few “child prodigies” can succeed when they grow up, while the majority of others become normal people.

Meanwhile, in Vietnam, parents always want their children to begin studying soon. Many students can read and write before they go to the first grade. Parents believe that once their children can learn soon, they will get superior to classmates.

“I think that it is necessary to help change such a viewpoint of parents, but it seems that no one intends to do that,” Hac said.

Dr Dao Trong Thi, Chair of the National Assembly’s Committee for Culture, Education, Youth and Children, also agrees that children should not race for bringing children to schools before age, because this may cause burdens to the children.

The Ministry of Education and Training, when setting up the new regulation, aims to pave the way for the students who really have good learning capability, to choose the grades suitable to their capability and shorten the learning process. However, this is not an encouraging thing for all students.

In general, Vietnamese parents always try to compete with each other and they all want their children to have better learning achievements than other people. Therefore, analysts have warned that once the regulation on allowing students to go to school early or skip grades would lead to a new race among parents, where parents would force students learn to hard in order to be able to skip grades.

Dr Van Nhu Cuong, Headmaster of Luong The Vinh People Founded High School also thinks that students should not skip grades, because learning is the work for all life of people. Meanwhile, when skipping grades, students may have to face many psychological problems. They will have to learn in the same classes with the students with different levels of physiological psychology level.

“If students have good learning capability, they should spend time on learning other subjects to obtain more knowledge,” he said.

Dr Nguyen Tung Lam, Chair of the Hanoi Educational Psychology Association, now Headmaster of the Dinh Tien Hoang High School, has expressed his worry that if the skipping grades takes place in a large scale, it may lead to the fact that students would still get degrees even though they do not have to go to school.

Lam stressed that it is necessary to define concrete requirements on the students who skip grades. He agrees that it is reasonable to allow schools’ headmasters to make decisions, but they can only made decisions on the basis of reasonable criteria.

Source: VTC