As an accountant, Ms. Hong Thom has a headache every day when she goes to work with dozens of documents and numbers. Her work at the office is not finished yet, she still has to stop to go home, pick up her children, go to the market to quickly cook dinner for the children in time for school at 7pm.

“From early morning to late at night, I am always in a state of being busy, without rest, from work to family. Many times I crave to sleep early but almost cannot because every night I have to stay up until almost midnight to do homework with my children," Ms. Thom confided.

Many students fall asleep during class because they stay up late doing homework. (Illustration photo)

Although he is only in second grade, Ms. Thom's son has to complete 5-7 pages of homework every day. From writing Vietnamese paragraphs, doing math problems to English vocabulary, Natural and Social Sciences, there are exercises. The amount of homework is too much, the child cannot do it all by himself, forcing his parents to closely monitor and supervise.

The amount of homework is so much that her son has no time to rest. He is always tired and often falls asleep in class because he stays up late at night to complete both homework and homework for extra classes.

" At school, my child has to take advantage of recess to complete his homework. At home, he works hard from 7pm to 10pm and still hasn't finished his homework. One time I saw him sitting there crying and angry with himself. What I'm glad about is that he doesn't get discouraged even though he encounters difficult homework that takes a long time to solve. However, what's worrying is that he goes to bed too late and yawns when he goes to school in the morning. I think that's ineffective," said Ms. Thom.

Sharing about his child's schedule, this male parent listed that at 7:30 am, his child starts school, at 5 pm his parents pick him up, and at night he starts studying from 7-10 pm. This schedule has been going on regularly since his daughter entered elementary school.

Busy with work, parents still have to stay up late to be homeschoolers to teach their children. (Illustration photo)

"I want my child to sleep early to develop in height and physical strength. Therefore, every day I "play the role" of a strict teacher, requiring my child to focus on doing homework quickly so he can go to bed early," said Mr. Quy, adding that he works as a programmer, so his workload always piles up, and he comes home at 7-8 pm every day.

Since my child started first grade, I have to come home early to cook for him to finish his evening classes. After tutoring him and putting him to bed, I stay up until 2am to finish my work.

"I really think my children have too much homework, from writing practice books to exercise books. They study 3-4 subjects a day, so they all have exercise books that need to be done," Mr. Quy listed.

He and some parents in the class had complained that the teacher was giving their children too much homework. However, the only response they received was "I hope parents can help, the amount of knowledge is large, it's impossible to learn everything in class".

Even in the parents’ chat group, the teacher constantly updates the academic performance of all the students in the class. To prevent the students from falling behind, the teacher actively assigns extra homework, forcing students to study on weekends.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Mai (a primary school teacher in Hanoi) admitted that the amount of homework assigned to students by teachers is too much, especially in key schools and selective classes. Under pressure to compete for points, teachers have no choice but to assign more homework to students so that they can improve quickly.

This female teacher explained that the problem is not that too much homework overloads children. The daily knowledge for primary school students in general and first graders in particular is too much for them. Teachers are trying to find and use the smartest teaching methods to reduce the burden of knowledge for the children.

“In addition, each lesson only lasts 45 minutes. This is enough time for children to absorb knowledge and practice some related exercises to understand the lesson. Therefore, teachers are required to assign more homework for students to practice, helping them remember longer,” said Ms. Mai.

In fact, the first grade curriculum is too long and demanding. While children are just learning to spell and memorize the alphabet, the curriculum requires them to be able to read a complete paragraph.

Ms. Mai said that many teachers do not assign homework to students because of too many complaints from parents. However, when children come home, they are only absorbed in their phones, watching TV and playing games. Parents are also too busy with work to supervise their children, do not force them to study, and let them develop naturally.

As a result, children's academic performance declines, they lose focus on lessons, and gradually fall behind their friends.

No homework assigned

At the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year, Ms. Le Thuy My Chau, Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City, raised the issue of teachers assigning too much homework to students through parent chat groups. Many parents said that their children were overloaded because of the busy schedule of two sessions at school, and still had to do homework at night.

Ms. Chau emphasized that the policy of the new general education program is not to give homework to primary school students. Students have to attend school twice a day, teachers must give them exercises and practice in class. During their time at home, teachers encourage students to review old lessons or prepare new lessons if necessary.

"At the beginning of the school year, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training issued a document instructing teachers to let students complete their homework in class and not give them homework. We will have inspection teams to record and promptly correct this situation if it occurs," she said.