Is extra teaching and learning bad?

The nature of extra teaching and learning is not bad.

Le Hoang Ha - a 12th grade student (Viet Yen, Bac Giang ) does not oppose extra teaching and learning. The female student believes that this activity is really necessary and legitimate when students voluntarily go to school.

Every week, in addition to her regular classes in class, Ha registers for extra classes every afternoon at school, and also takes 6 extra classes/3 subjects (Math, Physics, Chemistry) at her house in the evenings. Her schedule is packed all week, but the female student does not complain, considering this her responsibility.

Many students agree that extra tutoring is necessary. (Illustration photo)

"If you want to get into the National Economics University as you wish, studying and practicing with high intensity is obvious. Just knowledge in class or in textbooks is not enough, you need to practice skills in handling questions, practice tests... that can only be achieved through extra classes," the female student said.

Each class period is only 45 minutes, briefly introducing knowledge, with a few small practice questions. If you want to understand more deeply and solve more related exercises, you must take additional classes.

Ha believes that extra classes come from our needs. If teachers assign homework to students to do on their own, and they don't go to extra classes, students will struggle to study and find solutions to these types of problems on their own.

Ms. Bui Anh Ngoc (44 years old, Ha Dong, Hanoi ) travels more than 40km around the city every day to take her two children to the teacher's house for extra classes. The older child is in grade 11, the younger child is in grade 6, and the extra class schedule is almost full every week. Although it is difficult to pick up, take care of and pay for extra classes for her children, she is still very willing because she understands that if she does not take extra classes, her children will be worse off.

Ms. Ngoc and her husband both work in factories, their education level is not high, both only graduated from vocational college. Meanwhile, the education program is constantly changing, far different from the knowledge she was taught before, if the family teaches and supervises their children at home, it is almost impossible.

"Last year, when he was in 5th grade, my child asked a difficult math problem. My husband and I struggled all night, even searched the internet but could not solve it, so we gave up. After each time like that, I realized that knowledge nowadays is different, and my children are also under a lot of pressure from homework. Without someone to guide and guide them properly, they will study worse and worse," she recalled. That is also the reason why, as soon as my child entered 6th grade, my family decided to register him for extra classes at the teacher's house.

Since her children started studying at her teacher's house, she has felt more secure, especially with her eldest daughter in grade 11, an important stepping stone for the upcoming grade 12. Each month, her family spends about 4 million VND on extra classes for her two children, a not small amount of money but completely manageable.

Tutoring is not bad, but why is it condemned?

As a dedicated teacher with many years of experience in the profession, Mr. Luu Ba Hoang (a high school teacher in Vinh Yen, Vinh Phuc) expressed his opinion that the nature of extra teaching is not bad, stemming from the practical needs of parents and students.

The current general education program is quite heavy, students have to study many subjects at the same time, face many stressful and pressured exams such as entrance exams to selective classes, entrance exams to specialized schools, university entrance exams... Meanwhile, with the time in class, teachers can only cover basic knowledge.

There is a need for students and parents to take extra classes to supplement and enrich their knowledge. In this respect, extra classes help students consolidate and expand their knowledge, meeting the needs of participating in highly selective exams.

Many students believe that going to extra classes helps them improve their knowledge. (Illustration: Ngo Nhung)

With 18 years of experience teaching and reviewing for thousands of students to pass the top universities in medicine, economics, information technology... Mr. Hoang further analyzed that not all teachers have many students coming to study. Students today are very smart, only looking for teachers who impart knowledge that is easy to understand, suitable for their own goals and many previous generations of students have passed. Any teacher who forces students to take extra classes with poor quality will only work for a short time, later on the students will get bored and give up.

"Like any other profession, teachers also have the right to earn extra income by working overtime. Teachers are also working hard to exchange their knowledge for legitimate tuition fees outside of class time," he said.

Objectively speaking, Ms. Huynh Thi Mai Hoa frankly stated that the nature of extra teaching and learning is not bad, but there are reasons for always encountering mixed reactions from public opinion, even boycotts and criticism.

A number of teachers today neglect their studies in class to find ways to attract students to extra classes to improve their income. At the parent-teacher meetings at the beginning of the year, teachers asked students to study and practice by themselves, then gave them tests that were too difficult, causing students to have low scores. With no other choice, students had to take their bags to extra classes, and parents had to bear the burden of tuition fees.

Even more sadly, there are teachers who intentionally "hide lessons" and "give questions" to keep students in extra classes. Discrimination between students who take extra classes and those who don't is not rare.

Ms. Hoa believes that every profession has its "bad apples", but that does not mean we should strongly condemn and ban extra teaching and learning. We need to look at it from a more multi-dimensional perspective from society, especially education managers, instead of banning and condemning it as a social evil.

Paradox 'if you can't manage it, ban it'

Delegate Nguyen Cong Long (Dong Nai Delegation), Standing Member of the Judiciary Committee, said that it is necessary to find the root cause of the problem of extra teaching and learning.

Up to now, we have approached this issue as a problem, banned. Many places "ambush" to "catch" cases of extra teaching, handle and punish. This way of dealing with teachers is not appropriate and we need a different management method, properly assessing the effects and significance of extra teaching in education and the practical needs of parents and students.

"Our children grow up, get good jobs and pass exams, partly thanks to extra classes," he said, explaining why the medical profession is allowed to do extra work while the education profession is not. Therefore, to solve the problem of extra teaching, we need to understand the root cause. Extra teaching comes from the fact that teachers' living standards and incomes are too low.

National Assembly delegates from Dong Nai province hope that the education sector will have a fundamental solution to this problem instead of "if you can't manage it, then ban it".

Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son also clarified the issue of extra teaching and learning before the 15th National Assembly forum. The Minister said that extra teaching outside of school hours and even for those who do not work in educational institutions is a need that cannot be banned.

Previously, the Ministry of Education and Training issued Circular 17 regulating tutoring and extra learning, raising the issue that this is a conditional business. However, the Investment Law 2016 removed tutoring from the list of conditional business lines, so many provisions of Circular 17 are no longer valid. Currently, the Ministry of Education and Training proposes that tutoring is a conditional business line in the investment law.

However, extra teaching and learning where teachers reduce the official teaching content or teach the content in class in advance is prohibited. This is within the ethics of teachers and is prohibited. If there are teachers who give extra teaching like that, then it is something that should be condemned, the Minister stated.

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