Under Circular 29 issued by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), extra classes in school are prohibited. Extra teaching can only be provided to low performing students who need to improve, to excellent students who need to be prepared for provincial or national competitions of excellent students, and to students who voluntarily register for extra lessons to prepare for school finals. However, teachers are not paid for the extra teaching.

As the number of learners is shrinking and teachers do not receive fees for teaching, many schools have decided to stop extra classes.

Parents have expressed concern about the implementation of the new circular, as they do not know how to manage their children who now are at home in the afternoon instead of at school all day.

Hoa, a parent from Nghe An, is worried about the possible decline in her son’s academic performance once he only has one learning session a day instead of two.

“The school informed us that private tutoring will be given only to poor and excellent students. There will still be classes on life skills, sports and fine arts. However, the classes won’t use all afternoons of the week,” she said.

“Now students have to self-study and arrange time themselves. I am afraid that his learning records would go bad. And he is going to attend the high school entrance exam, the fiercest exam in life,” she complained.

“In modern times, leaving children alone at home can easily lead to negative behaviors, particularly if children become engrossed in their phones and access toxic information,” she said.

“At this age, children are easily distracted and influenced by surrounding concerns. At school, they are supervised by teachers, but at home, when parents are away, they can do anything they want, and they even might be seduced by social evils,” she said.

“In many cases, parents know that extra classes at school are not really useful to their children, but they still send their children to these classes because they can be certain that their children are taken care of by schools and teachers,” she explained.

Meanwhile, other parents are worried about financial costs to fund their children’s study. In general, the fees for extra classes in school are lower than fees charged by refresher education or exam preparation centers.

A couple in a suburban district of Hanoi said their total monthly income is VND18 million, and they have two children, a ninth and an eighth grader.

Previously, they had to pay VND2 million for extra classes for the two children, and VND1.2 million for extra English classes. As they have been informed by teachers that the extra classes will shut down, they rushed to seek private extra classes, but realized that the fees are very high, VND100,000-120,000 per hour.

If they send the two to private centers to attend maths, literature and English classes, they would have to pay VND6 million in total, double the current fee.

“It would be a problem if school fees alone cost us one third of our total income,” the husband said.

Nguyen Van Chinh, a parent in HoaiDuc who has a son going to a secondary school in the locality, said he would rather spend money to send his son to extra classes in school than leave the boy at home.

“We can feel secure at work when we are sure that our son is at school and he is taken care of by teachers,” he explained, adding that the fees for extra classes are not high, just VND400,000 a month. 

“Parents whose children are in the final year at secondary school are even more worried,” he said. 

“Schools cannot give extra teaching to students to prepare for the high school entrance school. But guidance by teachers is very important and useful,” he added.

Despite complaints from parents, MOET insists on its decision to prohibit extra teaching at school.

MOET Deputy Minister Pham Ngoc Thuong stressed that the new regulations on extra teaching and learning aim to maintain the integrity and respectability of teachers and the education sector.

Thanh Hung