For many well-off families, more than 30 million VND is not a large amount of money, but for the family of Ms. Hoang Thu Thuy (40 years old, Thai Binh), it is a big problem. However, she still tries her best to save this amount of money for her child to register for an IELTS course at a center near her home.

Ms. Thuy said that after carefully researching many university admission methods next year, IELTS is the most open path for her child.

"I was shocked when I saw the graduation exam scores and the admission scores this year. My child is only good at extracurricular activities. Getting 25-26 points to get into prestigious schools is quite difficult," said Ms. Thuy. In addition to some schools that directly admit candidates with high IELTS scores, most schools recruit students by combining foreign language certificates and academic records or foreign language certificates and high school graduation exam scores.

According to Ms. Thuy, if her child achieves an IELTS score of 6.5 to 7.0, there will be many more options. After being sure of this method, Ms. Thuy began to look for reputable places to study. "I asked many centers, with my child's average level, to achieve 6.0 IELTS, I had to spend a lot of money, some places guaranteed the score as desired by parents but the total price was up to 50 - 60 million VND", this amount is equal to Ms. Thuy's half-year monthly salary.

After asking around for many addresses, Ms. Thuy decided to register her child to study at a center near her home, committed to teaching until the set goal is achieved. If by the admission deadline her child has not received an IELTS certificate, the center will refund 1/3 of the amount.

To have more than 30 million VND to pay for her children's school fees, Ms. Thuy determined to sell 2 gold rings weighing more than 3 taels that her mother gave her when she got married. Having kept them for many years and gone through many changes, Ms. Thuy never thought of selling the dowry, but for the sake of her children's future, she had to sell them. She borrowed the remaining amount from relatives, a few hundred thousand each.

Ms. Thuy registered her child for the course from the beginning of grade 12 and has now completed half of the course according to the consulting center. After the mock exam, seeing that her child scored 4.5 points, Ms. Thuy was both happy and worried. She was happy because her child saw the family's difficulties and tried to study hard, but she was also worried because going from 4.5 to 6.5 is not an easy thing.

Although not having to borrow money for his child to go to school like Ms. Thuy's family, Mr. Do Duy Tien (40 years old, Hanoi) also has to save every penny because his child's IELTS tuition is up to 7.5 million/month.

Because his daughter is introverted, instead of sending her to a center, Mr. Tien hired a tutor to come to his house to tutor her 1:1 with the goal of achieving 7.0 IELTS or higher. The people hired by Mr. Tien are all young people who have just graduated, have experience taking the IELTS test and have achieved high scores.

Every week, Mr. Tien's daughter spends most of her time studying and practicing IELTS instead of studying general knowledge and reviewing for the graduation exam. He also plans for her to apply for university admission using a foreign language certificate, so there is no need to put too much pressure on her graduation exam score.

Although the IELTS certificate is only valid for 2 years, Mr. Tien does not regret the money because he believes that the knowledge will stay with his child forever, until he goes to university. Studying like this also builds a good foundation, later if his child wants to retake the exam to use for other purposes such as applying for a job, it will be easier.

Mr. Tien lets his daughter study English with a tutor 5 nights a week, and she studies on her own on the weekends. This study lasts about 2 months. Since letting her focus all her time and effort on IELTS, Mr. Tien also has to devote all his energy to paying for her tuition.

To have 4.5 million VND per month, Mr. Tien cut down on unnecessary expenses, did not buy clothes, and repaired broken household items instead of buying new ones. He also cut down on social relationships to avoid having to attend weddings and funerals to save money.

In addition to working during the day, he also works as a motorbike taxi driver at night. "If I work hard, 5-7 trips every night, I can earn extra money to cover my living expenses," Tien said. He is willing to do anything to give his son more choices before going to university. For Tien's family, this is a time when both father and son need to work hard.

Ms. Vu Thu Hoai (Lecturer at Vietsun Foreign Language Center) shared that more and more students are registering to study IELTS for the purpose of university admission.

"Before accepting any student, we always ask them what their wishes are. Most of them say they want to apply to university because almost every school now has admission quotas based on foreign language certificates," said Ms. Hoai, adding that sadly, many students want to get high scores but only want to study for a short time in a crash course, so that they can forget the knowledge right after the exam. Some students even go to the center to ask to buy certificates.

Ms. Hoai has witnessed many cases of rushing to study just because of the trend, parents are willing to spend money for their children to study from basic to advanced training just to own a paper and think that it is a "golden ticket" to enter university without really understanding the value of foreign language certificates. This not only makes students waste time and effort but also makes parents work hard and pressure to earn money.