VietNamNet Bridge - The all-round educational ethos of international schools in Vietnam which includes an emphasis on English language skills as well as personal and physical development is encouraging more and more Vietnamese parents to enroll their kids.

A confidence boost

“My daughter became a lot more cheerful and confident after she moved to this school,” says Tran Ngoc Long, whose daughter left a private Vietnamese school in Ho Chi Minh City for Singapore International School (SIS) in Saigon South.

In her old school, Long’s daughter was laden down with tonnes of homework and had little time to play and enjoy her childhood.

“Now she doesn’t have as much homework. This means her mother and I can take her out with us and we can spend more time together, which helps us feel closer to each other,” he insists.

Not that less time at the grindstone means she’s slacking off. Long says since changing schools she has made leaps and bounds as a student, especially in subjects such as Maths and English.

“My daughter is taught not only how to complete the exercises, but also how to solve problems,” he says.

Long is certainly not the only Vietnamese parent who is happy he decided to send his kid to an international school. Minh Trang’s son studies in the 1st Grade at the same school and is also delighted her son is showing vast improvement. In particular Trang is pleased with her son’s progress in English ability but also his all-round independent attitude.

“When my son joined he didn’t know how to speak any English or write any Vietnamese while a lot of his classmates were already speaking English,” says Trang. “The principal arranged a special class for him where he is taught by an American teacher who can also speak a little Vietnamese. After just two months, my son was able to catch up with the class and has become very expressive.”

“Sometimes when I watch him riding his little bicycle alone or choosing a book for himself in the bookstore, I feel so grateful for what his teachers in SIS have done,” she says, adding that he never did anything by himself previously.

Life on Campus

Located on an area of 10,000 sq metre right next to the new urban area in Saigon South, Singapore International School contains of 3 blocks of 25 classrooms, library, multi-media room, arts and crafts room, laboratory, administration hall, multi purpose hall with the capacity of hosting 600 students. There is also a large school yard where students can play their children games such as skipping rode or hide and seek.

Facilities include a swimming pool, mini-football pitch and space for other physical activities. Walking around the grounds it’s easy to see the difference from a regular Vietnamese school which traditionally place much more of an emphasis on academic exercises and tend to ignore the physical development of kids.

The managing board of SIS insists that a bright mind lies in a fit body. Small motivational words such as “honesty”, “commitment” and “industrious” are stuck on the board in front of every classroom.

The principal Peter Baker explains that each one is the name of the class as students from each class bear that particular virtue.

“I hope when the students graduate from this school, those virtues will be their life-long belongings,” says Peter. “No one can avoid making some mistakes in their life, and we hope that in those moments, our students will recall their time in this school and the virtue that they bear in their class will lift them up.”

At the school’s computer lab, a seven-year-old girl shows us a poem that she has just typed on a computer and printed out all by herself.

When I expressed my surprise that such a young girl can, not only use a computer and a printer but also arrange a poem neatly, using Word Document, Peter explains that Singapore International School believes in the “smart school” concept, in which all of the students are taught, to use to hi-tech tools such as computers, printers, projectors or smart-boards.

Teachers here, also work hard to coax the more reticent students out of their shells.

“Vietnamese children are often quite shy when they enter our school, partly because they are afraid to make mistakes, when they speak up or show their opinions,” says Peter. “I have been doing things, such as making jokes, asking questions or challenging them to guess all possible answers. They gradually open up and volunteer to say whatever runs through their mind.”
“I’m impressed and admire my students as they grow very quickly in such a short time. They are brave, honest, polite, clever and so creative,” he adds.

Well rounded education

At SIS, schooling is clearly not only about teaching a child to read, write and solve mathematical equations and this approach appeals to parents looking to give their kid the best possible start to life with the most well rounded and dynamic educational experience possible.

Happiness, health, independence, self-confidence and problem-solving capability – this is what is now important to Vietnamese parents sending kids to international schools like SIS.

Parents even see international kindergartens as the first step of their child’s formal education.

“Sending our son to KinderWorld is expensive for a Vietnamese family like us, but he’s been there for nearly two years so obviously we’re completely satisfied with the results that our son has got,” says Do Anh Quynh Huong.

Such satisfaction is music to Ricky Tan’s ears. Ricky, the founder of The KinderWorld Group, opened the first KinderWorld International Kindergardens in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi in 2000.

That year he convinced less than 100 parents to enroll their children. Now the organisation boasts ten international kindergartens, five international schools throughout Vietnam.

Interestingly the focus isn’t just on urban areas. A massive education project to be developed by The KinderWorld Group that will school people of all ages in the Northern province of Bac Ninh and cover an area of 30 hectares has just got the green light.

“It will be a complete complex with an international kindergarten and schools, college and university as well as full supporting facilities, such as conference hotel, student accommodation, a sports centre, entertainment centre and retail stores. It will be completed in Bac Ninh by 2012,” says Ricky, who will also seek to build other “education cities” in Danang, Hue and Ho Chi Minh City. “When we finish, we will accommodate huge numbers of students of all ages.”

If you think Ricky’s plans sound overly ambitious, you have to remember the average age of Vietnamese people and consider factors such as the rate of economic development and international integration.

“Being here for over eight years, we could say we have been here long enough to understand the growth of Vietnam’s economy,” Ricky continues. “We see our future in the young population of Vietnam, two-thirds of which is under 35 years old and an average of a million babies are born every year, besides there are more than 20 million people in formal education system.”

“We didn’t come here only to build schools and offer a different way of learning, we also bring opportunities for parents to give their children a better preparation for their future.”

(Source: Timeout)