In order to help children have attractive summer holidays, many Vietnamese parents are ready to spend hundreds of millions of dong to send their children abroad to English summer camps.

While low and medium income workers queue up in front of children’s houses and summer clubs to register summer classes for their children, high income parents think of sending their children abroad to English summer camps. May and June are the good time for departure.

Summer camp services on high demand

A lot of overseas study consultancy firms now organize overseas summer camp programs, including ILA Vietnam, EF, VUS, First Alliances. Meanwhile, the most wanted destinations are Australia ((Sydney, Perth), the US (Los Angeles, New York, Boston), the UK (London, Manchester), Canada and Singapore.

A lot of firms have begun providing the services recently, after realizing the high demand from the students, who want to spend time to “discover the world” and get acquainted with the countries where they will go later to follow university study.

Le Manh Hung, a student in Ba Dinh district, said that his parents have agreed to fund his trip to the US this year. “I will have the chance to visit landscapes in Los Angeles, while I will also have the chance to practice English,” he said.

Nguyen Thi Hanh, the mother of Hung, said that she plans to send Hung to the US to follow the university study after Hung finishes high school. Therefore, she would like to send Hung to the US this summer, so that Hung can get acquainted with the living and learning environment in the US.

“A lot of my friends, who have their children studying in the US have advised me to send the son to summer camps in the US right now, so that the boy can gradually get adapted to the new environment,” she said.

Nguyen Phuong Hoa, a 11th grader of the Hanoi-Amsterdam High School recalled the happy days of the last summer. “In the first week in Singapore, we only spent time to visit the central area, supermarkets and parks. After that, we could visit Sensota island, Jurong bird’s park and the Singaporean National Zoo and many other interesting places,” she said. “They were wonderful days,” she added.

However, visiting sites is not the main goal of Vietnamese students. The most important thing that persuades parents to spend huge sums of money to allow children to take trips abroad, is that the trips can bring them the opportunities to practice English. Therefore, besides attending outdoors activities, students also have to study.

“We were asked to write essays and make presentations. We could talk about the landscapes we visited, or relate how we made purchases, or simply describe a seller we once met,” Hoa said.

She went on to say that the trips abroad are very useful and interesting, because they can help students become independent and easily adapt to new environments with differences in languages and cultures. Besides, the new cultural, social and historical knowledge about foreign countries, students can be more self-confident in communication in English.

Summer holiday camps reserved for the rich only

As the living standards of many families in big cities have been improved, parents not only try to send children to prestigious schools in Vietnam, but also draw up long term study plans for them. Many parents plan to send children abroad to follow university education, and they begin preparing for this since the children enter primary school.

It is clear that overseas summer camps are reserved only for children from well off families, because the camps are always very costly.

According to VTC, a trip, which lasts two to six weeks to the US, UK or Australia, costs between 3900 and 6000 dollars, while a trip to Singapore is cheaper, about 1400-2500 dollars.

Hanh, the mother of Hung, has also revealed that she has chosen a prestigious service provider, but the expenses are really high, at 6000 dollars, or 120 million dong.

VTC