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Difficult to choose

Although she has a third child in primary school, Ms. Nguyen Hang (Trung Do ward - Vinh city) is still hesitant to register her child for grade 1. According to the school's announcement, this year the school will enroll 8 classes, including 3 intensive English classes, 2 Stem classes, and the rest are regular classes. Compared to traditional classes, Stem classes, students are expected to pay an additional 200,000 VND/month (25,000 VND/lesson) each month.

With the intensive English class, the amount will be more because the children will study 3 periods a week, including 2 periods with Vietnamese teachers (20,000 VND/period) and 1 period with a foreign teacher (40,000 VND/period). The intensive programs are all linked with centers to organize teaching.

According to Ms. Nguyen Hang, the amount of money to pay for extra classes is not much, but what she is concerned about is the curriculum and how the lessons are arranged during the school year: I really have a lot of hesitation when choosing a class for my child. Because, when we let our children learn English outside, we can choose the center, choose the curriculum and are informed by the teacher every day. Meanwhile, at school, I think this is difficult because the class is too crowded and students only study a few lessons a week, so the efficiency is not high. In fact, I registered my child for an extra class just because I hope he will be in a class with priority teachers. Otherwise, I think I still have to register my child for extra classes outside.

This year's enrollment season, most schools in Vinh City are enrolling students in intensive classes, which makes it difficult for many parents to enroll their children. Through the actual enrollment work this year, teacher Hoang Thi Thuy - Principal of Trung Do Primary School - Vinh City said: It is understandable that parents are concerned and the school has had to directly advise many parents when registering their children for classes.

This year, the number of applications for the English Enhancement class is higher than the Stem class and exceeds the class quota. This shows that parents are quite interested in their children learning English at school. However, what parents are concerned about is whether the learning quality is effective or not, especially when the children are just entering grade 1 and we have to make a commitment to parents about this.

This year, Quang Trung Secondary School - Vinh City also recruited one intensive English class and one Stem class. Based on the initial registration documents, the school was forced to set admission criteria because the number of applications for the intensive English class was more than the set quota, with nearly 90 applications. Meanwhile, the Stem class was not enough as planned.

Teacher Nguyen Hong Hai - Principal of the school said: Parents still want their children to learn English more than other subjects, especially when many schools now prioritize students with foreign language certificates when enrolling in grade 10. However, parents are still hesitant about the remaining enhanced subjects because they are worried that it will take up a lot of their children's study time at school. For now, we let parents register, if there are enough classes, we will open the class, if there are not enough classes, we will stop the enhanced program. Last school year, Quang Trung Secondary School had a life skills enhancement class, but because there were not enough students, it could not be implemented.

According to the Department of Education and Training, in the 2022-2023 school year, the whole province's Foreign Language Centers have cooperated with educational institutions to open 3,749 enhanced English classes with more than 97,000 students attending. The number of students and classes increased by more than 50% compared to the 2020-2021 school year.

Besides, there are 11 units linking life skills education activities in educational institutions with tens of thousands of students studying.

Many shortcomings

From a few pilot classes, the enhanced program is now being opened in many schools across the province, focusing mainly on subjects such as English, Information Technology, Life Skills, Stem and some gifted subjects. The introduction of the enhanced program is considered suitable for the 2018 General Education Program, helping students develop comprehensively.

For example, at Ly Nhat Quang Secondary School (Do Luong), the school is currently implementing many parallel programs to enhance English, enhance IT, enhance cultural and artistic subjects, and enhance physical education and sports.

Through discussion, teacher Nguyen Thi Hong Kien - Principal of the school said: Before implementing the enhanced subject, we organized a conference of the school's core teachers to discuss, debate, and build output standards for each program. Subject groups are the core to implement this content under the direction of the school board.

For example, the output standard of the English enhancement program is 100% of students achieving level A2 or higher, of which 20% achieve level B1. During the implementation process, the school publicly announces the programs for students to choose from. At the same time, strictly implement inspection, supervision and timely remedy of existing problems and limitations. In particular, always listen to feedback from students and families to adjust the program to suit actual conditions and have high feasibility.

With the premise that the quality of student input is quite even, the implementationenhancement programat Ly Nhat Quang Secondary School is considered quite effective. However, the enhancement program does not always achieve good results. In fact, in the first years of implementing the enhancement program in schools, many parents still had concerns during the implementation process.

A parent whose child is studying in primary school for 4 years in the enhanced Math - English program in Vinh city said: I think that the enhanced English program must be appropriate for their age. Personally, I think that for children who are just starting primary school and have limited awareness, learning Math in English like the enhanced program currently being implemented is not necessary and is not very effective.

Meanwhile, at higher levels, many parents whose children are studying the English program shared that they were not satisfied with the coordination between English centers and schools in implementing the enhanced English program, especially in the output commitment. That is also the reason why, in the first year of piloting the English program in 3 secondary schools in Vinh city, parents at Trung Do Secondary School asked to stop the program ahead of schedule because they did not find it suitable.

In addition to implementing the enhanced program in schools, the enhanced program is also being implemented simultaneously in advanced school models with a similar form and this is considered a compulsory subject (instead of voluntary). However, at the high school level, after the first year of implementation, there have been revealed inadequacies in the program, teaching time and arrangement of enhanced subjects.

Regarding this, Mr. Nguyen Tien Dung - Head of Secondary Education Department, Department of Education and Training also said: Through the actual review of 1 year of implementation, we see that the enhanced program still has inappropriate factors such as not being integrated with the 2018 General Education Program, schools teach too many enhanced subjects causing students to be overloaded, not having much time left to study culture.

Therefore, the Department is currently drafting a document to guide schools in implementing enhanced subjects in a way that allows students to choose appropriate subjects that are connected to the school's main curriculum, and not teach many subjects at once but can divide time during the school years, avoiding time pressure and reducing financial pressure for families...

Reality also shows that, although it is called strengthening, most schools are currently "contracting" to affiliated centers, so the issue of quality needs to be concerned. Therefore, in the coming time, the Department and the Department of Education and Training need to objectively evaluate the implementation in schools, analyze the advantages, difficulties and shortcomings to have appropriate solutions for the coming time and bring the strengthening subjects back to the right effectiveness and purpose.