Sending their children to online preschool classes, many parents "lose money and get nothing"

After 2 weeks of running around looking for a preschool class for her 5-year-old son, Ms. Minh Chau (38 years old, Tan Trieu, Hanoi) felt tired and confused because there was too much information advertising the class, not knowing the real quality.

"The classes advertised by acquaintances as good quality are too far from home and expensive, the highest cost 400,000 VND, the cheapest is about 200,000 VND for a 2-hour class.",Ms. Chau said.

Ms. Chau also joined some groups on social networks to consult about extra classes for her children before entering first grade. With just the keyword "pre-primary school", she received hundreds of posts and advertisements displayed.

Pre-primary classes are springing up like mushrooms.

Many centers advertise year-round enrollment, as long as parents want their children to study, the center will arrange a class, no need to wait until summer. According to the post of the AS center in Quang Ninh, each pre-primary class here only recruits from 2 to 5 students. The center trains according to the individualized method, meaning each child will have their own study plan. This unit also promises to fully equip the knowledge and skills necessary for children to confidently enter grade 1.

Not only the centers, many people who claim to be teachers openly post to recruit students on tutoring groups. In each post, these people clearly state the content that children will learn such as: Practice reading the alphabet, words, sentences, practice writing basic strokes, get familiar with numbers from 1 to 10, recognize shapes, add, subtract and compare within 10.

Starting from March, these advertisements appeared frequently, receiving great attention from many parents. Most preschool classes have about 3 sessions/week, each session lasts 2 hours.

In the same groups, parents are also actively posting to find a school near their home for their children. Some parents have rushed to 'invest' in extra classes for their children as young as 4 years old to prepare for first grade.

"Losing money and getting sick"

With more than 10 years of experience teaching children, Ms. Ngoc Anh - a teacher at a kindergarten in Hanoi, has noticed that the movement of letting children take extra classes before entering primary school is increasing. "However, due to not researching information carefully, many families are in a situation that is both funny and sad when sending their children to spontaneous, poor quality classes," the female teacher shared.

Ms. Ngoc Anh has received many "rescue" calls from parents who sent their children to study for 4-5 months at pre-primary "training centers", only to be shocked when they found out that their children had learned the wrong knowledge of the standard curriculum in the textbooks. Many children were even taught to spell incorrectly, so when they entered first grade, correcting them was even more difficult than starting from scratch.

"Many parents think they can rest assured when investing millions of dong for their children to learn in advance, but it turns out that they learn slower than their peers because it takes time to retrain them," said Ms. Ngoc Anh, who advised parents to carefully research information about the classes to avoid repeating the mistakes of their predecessors.

Ms. Tran Phuong Dung (Manager of Hoa Le Private Kindergarten, Quang Ninh) shared: "Recently, the number of spontaneous preschool classes has increased, and many teachers do not have expertise or experience. Parents rushing to send their children to these classes is not necessarily good for children, and can even have the opposite effect."

According to regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training, preschools are not allowed to teach first grade curriculum in advance, but parents are still eager to find ways for their children to study outside, considering it more important than going to regular classes every day.

"The knowledge of grade 1 according to the new general education program is considered quite heavy, but does not require students to read fluently or write fluently right from the beginning of the school year," said Ms. Dung, adding that to prepare well for grade 1, children only need to recognize numbers and signs at a basic level, and do not need to know how to add and subtract right from the beginning of grade 1.

"Pre-school equipment is good, but how it is equipped depends on the needs and conditions of each family. Instead of spending a lot of money to send your children to preschool classes of unknown quality, parents should spend about 30 minutes or 1 hour in the evening to both study and play with their children," said Ms. Dung.