Parents 'confused' with all kinds of school apps

“Every year the school uses a different app to pay fees, which is very inconvenient for parents. Sometimes this app, sometimes that app, it's a mess, especially for families with three children going to school like mine.” That is the sharing of Ms. Ha Thanh, a parent with 3 children studying in preschool, primary school and secondary school in Hanoi, when mentioning the installation of tuition payment applications at schools today.

In recent years, the education sector has promoted the application of information technology software in management or payment of tuition fees and other fees by non-cash payment methods. However, this policy has led to many opinions from parents because of the shortcomings arising from the use of these applications.

Waste of time, "invite" anger to yourself

Ms. Ha Thanh said that to pay tuition and other fees for their children, she and her husband installed 3 different applications on their phones. Each application has its own interface and operations, making them confused and wasting time learning how to use it.

The mother of three said that all the payment apps are intermediaries and do not charge any fees, but downloading and creating an account is complicated, and it still fails after 3-4 attempts. Once the account is successfully created, parents have to go through many steps to pay for tuition.

Specifically, Ms. Thanh must transfer money from the bank to the app, then continue to transfer from the app to the school. If the app does not accept the available bank, she is forced to open an additional account number as required to transfer money.

However, many times, even though she had prepared enough tuition, Ms. Thanh still could not pay because the application had an error on the due date. She and her husband had to wait until the error was gone, or transfer money to the teacher to pay for them because they were afraid of being late.

“I'm not afraid of paying for my child, but I'm afraid of paying via the app because it takes a lot of time,” the parent shared.

What Ms. Thanh is most upset about is that at the beginning of the school year, she uses one application, but at the end of the year, she switches to another application, and she and her husband have to download and learn the operations all over again. Up to now, she can't remember how many applications she has had to use just to pay for her children.

“Parents who are not tech-savvy have a hard time. Not to mention children whose parents work far away and live with their grandparents, making it difficult to pay via the app,” said Ms. Thanh.

Ms. Le Lan, a parent with a 4th grader in Ho Chi Minh City, does not need to pay through an intermediary app like Ms. Ha Thanh, but is also "confused" because of all the apps she has to download to serve her child's learning and connect with the school.

When asked how many applications the school required me to download, Ms. Lan said, “I don’t remember. The school told me to download them, so I downloaded them, and then I struggled to find a way to use them.” The mother couldn’t even remember all the names of the applications, only remembering one application, eNetViet, to see her child’s grades and academic results.

“I am ‘blind’ to technology, I hardly use my phone, so sometimes I have to ask my children to open these apps for me to see. But I don’t use these apps much because we have a Zalo chat group, we update information in there without having to open the app,” said Ms. Lan.

Meanwhile, Ms. Nguyen Ha, a parent of a first-grade student in Ho Chi Minh City, did not download any applications to her phone even though the homeroom teacher had sent information to the parents' chat group since the beginning of the year. The mother said that the homeroom teacher sent download links for three applications: eNetViet, VioEdu and iSMART, all of which are optional applications, so she did not download them because she felt they were unnecessary.

Speaking more about refusing to download applications, Ms. Ha said that in fact, applications like eNetViet also have some benefits such as knowing the child's academic achievements, reading teachers' comments or updating the child's daily meals. However, the mother is still reluctant to download and uses the traditional way of communicating with the homeroom teacher in the class chat group or sending private messages.

As for the VioEdu app (a competition-based Math learning app) and iSMART (an English-based Math and Science learning app), Ms. Ha did not download it because her child attends extra classes outside, so there is no need to use additional apps on the phone. Furthermore, the mother also wants to limit her child's use of electronic devices to avoid affecting her child's eyesight.

“My child is just in first grade, it is not good to keep him glued to the screen, so I definitely did not download it, these applications are not mandatory anyway,” said Ms. Ha.

Wish there was a shared app

Ms. Ha Thanh herself and many other parents do not object to cashless payments because they are convenient and save time.

However, the experience of 3 schools for 3 children like the recent time has made her and her husband tired. She thinks that schools should unify some bank accounts so that parents can transfer money from their personal accounts to any time within the prescribed time. This creates convenience for parents while still ensuring the management of the school.

Ms. Le Lan does not need to use the payment app so she does not understand the suffering of parents like Ms. Thanh, but she herself feels quite tired of having to download all kinds of applications to her phone, which are complicated, take up phone capacity and are not very useful.

The mother understands that digital transformation is necessary in the current context, but the transformation needs to be “neat” and “less confusing”. Accordingly, Ms. Lan suggested that instead of creating too many applications, the education sector should only integrate many features into a single application and use it for all schools and levels. This way, parents will be less tired.

“Parents in their 40s like me are still confused about technology and are hesitant to use too many apps, so what should parents in their 50s and 60s do? In general, I am not against using apps, but it should be simplified to save us parents time and effort,” said Ms. Lan.