LookAtVietnam – Most of the students asked to write about their thoughts
about the learning shift changes have expressed their disagreement to the
decision about the new school hours.
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One day after the decision about the new school hours took effect, the 10th
graders of a high school in Hoan Kiem district in Hanoi, were asked to express
their viewpoints about the decision at a lesson.
Thirty essays were submitted to the teacher. These included short works with
just half an A4 page, short stories, and especially the long essays which showed
big students’ difficulties in implementing the new decision.
The noteworthy thing is that the majority of students have expressed their
dissatisfaction about the new regulation. Some students even criticized the
local authorities of “considering students as the white mice in the
laboratories,” who are the subjects for local authorities’ experiments.
A student related the story of his mathematics teacher. The timetable of the
teacher is as follows: gets up at 5 am, leaves home at 6.15 am, so as to be
present at the classes at 6.30 and prepare for the first teaching period
commencing from 7 am. The morning shift finishes at 11.30 am. What to do? It
would be better to stay at school during lunchtime and then continue the
afternoon shift at 2.30 pm. So, it would be better to bring meals with her and
take a nap after lunch in the classrooms.
The afternoon shift finishes at 7 pm. The teacher hurriedly leaves the school
for home, prepares dinners, haves a bath and then sits on the desk at 11 pm to
prepare the teaching plans for the next day. Then she goes to bed at 1.30 am, so
that she can get up at 5 am. As such, the daily timetable puts teacher in a
whirl.
Other students wrote that they have been facing too many difficulties with the
new school timetable.
“All students nowadays have to go to exam preparation centers or private
tutoring classes in the evening. And this is really a big problem for the
students, who finish school hours at 7 pm. If so, they have to finish the
private tutoring classes late at night, at about 10 pm. This is really dangerous
and inconvenient for students and their families,” an essay reads.
“Students have to get up too early to go to school, therefore, they feel tired
and cannot acquire knowledge effectively. As students do not have time for
breakfast at home, they have to have breakfast at street shops, which costs them
a lot of additional money,” a student wrote.
The most important thing is that the decision, which has made students’
activities get upset, cannot help ease the traffic jam as the local authorities
strive to.
LQT, a student, said that the school hour changes would even make the traffic
jam more serious. “As parents do not feel secure when letting their daughters go
on street late in the evening, they have to come to school to pick up their
children. As too many parents gather at the same time in front of schools, this
would lead to a more serious problem with the traffic.
LUM, trying to follow mathematical analysis, said that the problem would still
not be settled, the schools in the same areas have the same finishing hours,
this means that a high volume of people would be in circulation at the same
time, and the traffic jam would remain problematic.
“I have not seen any improvement in the traffic after the new school hour
timetable is applied,” MN, a student, concluded.
Meanwhile, THA proves to be very critical. “It seems that the city’s authorities
consider students and citizens as the white mice for their experiments,” she
wrote in the essay.
“We have to fulfill any idea, no matter they are good or bad, from the textbook
renovation, to the ban on students driving motorbikes to school. And now, we
have to implement the decision on school hour changes, which has made our lives
upset,” she continued.
Phong Danh