Educators have given a warning message to parents that the number of students who always play truant is increasingly high.

Going to shops and inns instead of schools

It is now the high exam season, when students have to gear up to prepare for semester and university entrance exams. However, many students do not spend their time studying at home or at school, but on Internet shops or inns, because games prove to be more attractive to them than lessons.

At 2.15 pm on April 18, at the tea shop on the right side of a high school in Binh Thanh street in HCM City, four 11^th graders were seen smoking, laughing and swearing. When the students were asked why they did not go to school, a student said: “We don’t have to go to school today”. When the students left, the shop’s owner told Saigon Tiep Thi’s reporters: “They are playing truant”.

The same scene could be seen in the morning of April 19 at many schools. The reporters saw a lot of students at tea shops in the school hours. At the Internet shop in front of the G High School, two students were seen gazing at the computer screens, though it was 8.30 am (the first lesson begins at 7 am).

Three students in school uniforms were seen parking their bicycles and entering the TN Internet Shop on Co Bac Road in district 1.

Internet shops, where students can play online games, cafés, billiard or tea shops near schools are the places students always go to  kill time. After spending time at the shops, male students can go somewhere to play cards, while female students can go to shopping malls or to cinemas.

1001 ways of playing truant

According to Tran Viet Thuan, who was once the proctor of a high school in the Tan Binh district, there are many ways for students to play truant. In principle, teachers only allow students to absent from lessons if parents send proposals to teachers and show legitimate reasons for the absence. However, in many cases, parents do not know anything about their absence of their children, simply because the students forge the signatures of their parents.

Truc, a 9^th grader of N School related: “A lot of my students go out in the break time and they do not return after the break time. Some other students go to school late, and they dare not enter to classes”

“It is very simple to ask for the permission to stay absent from lessons. Just write a letter to the head teacher and forge the signatures of parents,” she added.

“If someone wants to play truant, he just reported to the class’ monitor and teachers that he needs to go to meet the school’s proctors,” said Gia Han, an 8^th grader of C School. “The teachers will have no doubts if students say they need to meet proctors,” she explained.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Minh Quang, a student of C Secondary School, said that students just ask the teachers for the permission to go to toilets and then they do not return to classes.

A history teacher of L High School in the Binh Chanh District, said, that every time when the teacher asked students to do tests, two female students in his class complained they felt sick and wanted to go to have healthcare checked. However, the teacher later found out that the students pretended to feel sick to avoid the tests.

“The trick is mostly used by 11^th graders,” the teacher said.

A healthcare officer of T School in district 7 in HCM City, has also confirmed that many students always say they feel sick to get the permission to stay off from lessons. The officer said that many students even took sleeping pills which make them feel sick, so that healthcare officers certify that they are sick and cannot attend lessons. Only when too many students fell into the same situation, did the school discover that the students took sleeping tablets.

My Linh, an officer of a high school, said that many parents now decide to send their children to boarding schools, because they believe that once children have to go to classes in both the morning and afternoon, they will not have time to play.

Source: SGTT