Every week, in addition to her regular classes in class, Ha registers for extra classes all 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 reviewing intensely is obvious. Knowledge only in class or in textbooks is not enough, you need to practice the skills of handling questions, practicing tests... that can only be achieved through extra study," 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 become worse off.

Ngoc and her husband both work in factories, with low educational levels, both only graduated from vocational colleges. Meanwhile, the education program is constantly changing, far from the knowledge she was taught before, if the family were to teach and tutor their children at home, it would be 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 is different today, and my children are also under a lot of pressure from homework. Without someone to guide and instruct them properly, they will study worse and worse," she recalled. That was 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 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.

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 find extra classes to supplement and enrich their knowledge. In this aspect, extra teaching helps students consolidate and expand their knowledge, meeting the needs of participating in highly selective exams.

Many students believe that taking 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 entrance exams to top universities in medicine, economics, information technology... Mr. Hoang further analyzed that not all teachers have many students coming to study. Today's students 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 hours," he said.

Looking at it objectively, Ms. Huynh Thi Mai Hoa frankly stated that the nature of extra teaching and learning is not bad, but it always encounters mixed reactions from public opinion, even boycotts and criticism, for good reason.

Some teachers today neglect their studies in class to find ways to attract students to extra classes to improve their income. At parent meetings at the beginning of the year, teachers ask students to study and practice by themselves, then give them tests that are too difficult, causing students to get low scores. With no other choice, students have to take their bags to extra classes, and parents 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 students who do not is not uncommon.

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.

Up to now, we have approached this issue as a social problem, banned. Many places "ambush" to "catch" cases of extra teaching, handle and punish them. This way of treating 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 grades and get jobs, partly thanks to extra classes," he said, citing why the medical profession can do extra work but the education profession cannot. 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 people 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 private tutoring and learning, raising the issue that this is a conditional business. However, the Investment Law of 2016 removed private 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 private tutoring be 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 that is something that should be condemned, the Minister stated.