At the National Assembly discussion session on November 20, Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son and several National Assembly deputies proposed making tutoring a conditional business. This proposal received attention from teachers, experts and public opinion, with most of them agreeing.

Ms. Nguyen Bich Ngoc (Phan Chu Trinh High School, Da Nang) said that this is not the first time discussing the above content. The education sector has proposed it for the past 2 years, but for some reason it has not been accepted by government agencies or the National Assembly.

According to this female teacher, extra teaching and learning are legitimate needs of parents and students. With the current heavy assessment, testing, and admission methods, extra teaching cannot be eliminated immediately, but we need to discuss how to organize this activity more systematically.

When adding tutoring activities to the list of conditional business lines, there will be standards and criteria. For example, to open a tutoring center, the owner must meet the minimum conditions: teacher quality (qualifications, experience, ethics, health); facilities; teaching and learning organization plan... instead of being loose as it is now, anyone can open a class to teach, quality is not controlled.

The press and public opinion have repeatedly reported the situation of teachers "forcing" students to come to their homes for extra classes through methods such as giving low scores and negative comments. Some teachers frankly suggest that parents send their children to study to improve their academic performance.

"Only when classes and teachers are licensed and student lists are managed, will violations such as tutoring one's own students, forcing students to take extra classes... be easily detected and handled," said this teacher.

Do you support tutoring as a conditional business?

Agreeing with the view that extra teaching cannot be stopped at this time, teacher Huynh Tan Duc (Nguyen Du High School - Ho Chi Minh City) expressed that this activity brings many benefits to both teachers, students and parents.

Firstly, extra teaching and learning meet the goal of passing the entrance exam to a top school or university. Currently, the curriculum is still heavy, and the exams are highly competitive. If you only study textbooks without going deeper and improving, it will be difficult to pass the exam as desired.

Second, many parents are busy with work, and the time they spend with their children is almost only in the evening. In schools that cannot organize two sessions a day, students will be "free" in the remaining session after school hours, easily exposed to temptations and vices.

Third, teachers' income is currently quite low. When teachers' salaries cannot be improved, teaching extra classes will help them have more income to cover their living expenses. Creating opportunities for teachers to earn a legitimate income is better than letting them circumvent the law and work secretly. "Every profession in society is allowed to work overtime, so why can't teachers teach extra classes? Teachers working extra classes with their capacity, qualifications, and intelligence to increase their income is completely legitimate, there is nothing wrong with that," said Mr. Duc.

Most experts and teachers believe that making tutoring and extra learning a conditional business is considered a solution to stop the situation of letting this activity float or half-heartedly managing it.

Prof. Dr. Tran Xuan Nhi, Permanent Vice President of the Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges, former Deputy Minister of Education and Training, stated that the nature of extra teaching and learning is not bad. Students and parents have the need to improve their knowledge, and teachers have the need to increase their income. All of the above needs are legitimate, where there is supply, there is demand.

However, according to Mr. Nhi, negative forms of extra teaching such as "negligent teaching in class, mainly teaching at home" - that is, teachers do not teach their best in class, only teach a part and then consider it as "bait" to lure students to their home to teach and earn money, this is condemnable and needs to be banned.

To avoid negative transformations, it is necessary to include tutoring and learning in the list of conditional business sectors. Conditions on facilities, expertise, prices, teaching conditions... must have specific regulations and frameworks to manage tutoring and not let it transform.

A leader of a secondary school in Hanoi admitted that although many teachers knew about the information, they still organized extra classes at home, teaching their regular students, but sometimes they had to ignore it, keeping it out of sight. Teachers often gave the excuse of teaching extra classes at the request of parents, so if they still completed the assigned work well, the school had to accept it.

In particular, inspection teams mainly punish classes that are reported to cause disorder or do not ensure student safety. If the class is quiet and orderly, there are very few inspections, even surprise inspections.

"In the 8 years he has been principal, no teacher at the school has ever been suddenly inspected or fined for organizing extra classes at home," he said, suggesting that extra classes be approved as a legitimate activity, under the management of the law. "The more it is banned, the more it flourishes and becomes distorted" because they have to find ways to circumvent the law.

He also emphasized that there is nothing wrong with teachers working extra with their own efforts and intelligence, "don't consider them guilty, it's an inevitable law of life, where there is supply, there is demand".

Sharing the same view, Dr. Le Ba Chung (lecturer at Hanoi Law University) said that extra teaching and learning appear due to supply and demand in the market. Parents and learners have the need to supplement knowledge while centers and qualified teachers provide teaching activities.

Therefore, tutoring activities should be viewed as educational services. Including the service in the list of conditional business lines is necessary. This perspective will help clearly distinguish the educational management mechanism in public schools and tutoring service centers.

When included in the regulation, teachers participating in extra teaching will act as educational service providers, and cannot use their "soft power" as regular teachers at school to use their "soft power" on students. At the same time, the subjects participating in extra teaching and learning (parents, students, teachers) are based on the spirit of voluntariness, equality, and goodwill.

"Setting business conditions will help ensure better state management, thereby protecting the rights of learners. Service quality will determine prices and competitiveness, helping to improve teaching quality," said Mr. Sang.

Some parents object to considering tutoring as a conditional business because educational activities need to put the heart and love for students above all else instead of commercializing it into a buying and selling or exchange activity.

When tutoring becomes a conditional business, it means that the tuition fee will be much higher than it is now, teachers will have to meet the facilities, pay taxes... these pressures will unintentionally become a burden for parents.

Ha Cuong