Economic slowdown driving students out of HCMC private schools
Thursday, September 12, 2013, 09:48 GMT+7
Parents from other provinces are moving their children out of Ho Chi Minh City private high schools into hometown institutions, as they cannot continue to afford the exorbitant tuition, which is up to 67 times higher than at public schools, at this difficult time.
Most of them have cited “financial difficulty” as the reason for the migration, while city private schools, in return for their much better facilities, demand tuition 8 to 67 times higher than that collected by public ones.
Students at city public high schools must pay VND75,000 (US$3.6) to VND900,000 ($43) per month, according to the latest notice by municipal authorities, whereas a Tuoi Tre survey has shown that private high schools charge their enrollees VND5 million ($238) to VND7 million ($333) a month.
A mother from the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak, Nguyen Thi Lanh, told Tuoi Tre that she had sent her child to a hometown school for the 12th grade, as she is no longer able to incur the VND100 million ($4,762) annual cost for the student’s education at Ngo Thoi Nhiem High School, located in District 9.
“Life is more and more difficult, given the current economic slowdown, so I cannot afford that amount like I could in the previous two years,” Lanh said.
Another student, hailing from the central province of Quang Nam, has just dropped out of a city private high school, with campuses in Tan Phu and Binh Thanh Districts, for the same reason, its principal said.
“His parents decided to bring him home due to economic problems,” Pham Thanh Tam, principal of Hong Duc Private High School, told Tuoi Tre.
Tam added that the 2013-14 school year, beginning on September 5, witnessed a surge in the number of dropouts at his school on account of financial hardships.
“This occurred even though we have not hiked our tuition during the last two years,” he said.
Budgetary constraints are to blame for most of the recent dropout cases, Huynh Viet Hung, a city education official, said.
“Parents want to save up now,” Hung explained.
Ho Chi Minh City private middle and high schools admit an average of 2,800 to 3,500 out-of-city students annually, except for this year, when a mere 436 such students were recruited, according to statistics by the city Department of Education and Training.
About 980 students quit city private schools to enroll in their hometown institutions in this academic year, according to official statistics.
In Vietnam, private schools boast better facilities even though they may offer lower-quality education in comparison with their public competitors.
Formally, Vietnamese school students begin an academic year in early September and start enjoying their summer break in early June.
