Playing truant to go to work

As retailers need more servicemen in the year-end sale season, they tend to employ part time workers from university students, who have the demand for working to earn money and can fulfill the works well because they have good knowledge and communication skills.

Working at supermarkets, in the eyes of students is a “good job”. They can earn 200,000-300,000 dong per working shift, which lasts two or three hours.

At big shopping malls such as Big C, Metro and Vincom these days, once can see university students in uniforms introducing different products, from mobile phones, cosmetics to wooden furniture.

In general, the job is not too hard, while students can choose either to work from 6 am to 2 pm, or from 2 pm to 8 pm, and earn 2.5-3 million dong a month.

LT Thuy, a marketing officer of Pond’s cosmetics company said that the company does not require much experience, but requires good appearance and good communication skills.

Not only receiving monthly wages, salesmen at Big C also expect to get Tet bonuses, possibly equal to one-month pay, about 3 million dong. However, a lot of students have to refuse the job, because they will have to work until the December 29th of the Lunar Year, just two days before Tet, and return to work after Tet on the third day of the New Lunar Year.

Le Trung Duc, a fourth year student of the Open University, said that he has been working as salesman for a supermarket for one year already. Dung feels satisfactory with the job, because it brings relatively high income for a student. However, Dung said the job is time consuming, and he sometimes has to play truant to work at the supermarket. “If you have too many days-off, you will be dismissed,” Duc explained.

Many other students, who cannot get job as salesmen at supermarkets, can take the jobs of delivering leaflets at the entrance doors to markets or schools. The job fits students very well, because they can arrange their time. Though they have to walk a long distance they can earn big money, about 200,000 dong per three hours.

Students also may fall into traps

It is clear that working is very useful for students. This not only can bring money, but also brings experiences and live skills. However, a lot of students have reportedly caught in a trap and become miserable.

Tuan Tu, a first year student of the Hanoi National University, said that he came to a job center to look for a part time job. He was told to work as an operator, for which he would get 2 million dong a month. However, he was asked to pay 200,000 dong as the fee for job introduction. After that, he was asked to pay another 500,000 dong and fill in the documents for which he needed to pay 100,000 dong.

Finally, Tu decided to quit the job, but he failed to claim back 200,000 dong.

Vu Van Thai, a first year student of the Trade University, said that he feels regret for bogging down in a job at a multi-level sale company. He once wished to become rich quickly; therefore, he borrowed 3 million dong from friends to join the network of the company. However, just after several months, Thai decided to quit the job, on which he had to spend too much time. As he was too busy with the job, he could not pass some exams.

The miserable thing for Thai is that he now needs to earn money to pay the 3 million dong he borrowed from friends.

With a desire to do something useful to protect the environment, Nguyen Thu Huyen, a student at the Industrial Design Department of Hanoi Open University, had a science theme entitled “Unforgotten Scraps” that received great praise from people. It won the first prize for science research of the faculty and a consolation prize of the Education and Training Ministry.

With this science theme, she initiated using fabric scraps from tailor shops to create unique works of art. Then, she and two her friends, Dam Phuong Chi and Dieu Thi Hoa Hong, established a group to make them.

According to Huyen, making art from fabric scraps is rather complicated because each step requires subtle, sophisticated and creative input from the artists. Pieces of coloured fabric are chosen and cut, and images are drawn on each piece. These are then put together with milk glue – a special adhesive.

The most difficult step is using scraps to create faces with different emotions and the most sophisticated one is taking out every fibre to create the landscape of rice fields and waves of the sea. A combination of colours and images is found in works depicting landscapes and love.

Huyen said that her art reflects different themes, such as folk, abstract, children and landscapes. Sometimes the artworks can also be made in custom designs requested by customers. At present, her main customers are foreigners so she focuses on folk paintings. Vietnam’s characteristics and identity and the beauty of the nature and the people always impress foreigners.

Recently, their creations on the traditional costumes of the 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam were displayed at the Vietnam Women’s Museum. The enthusiasm and creativity of people like Huyen and her friends have given local people and foreigners another art form that expresses Vietnam’s cultural identity.

Under the new regulation, the students who have won third prize in a national contests will go straight from school to university, without having to sit for an entrance exam.

Likewise, those winning encouragement prizes will be eligible for enrolling in 3 year programs in colleges or technical institutes.

In case winners don’t want to go straight to university, they can take the entrance exam to enter schools. Normally, candidates take three exams of 180 minutes each for a fixed group of subjects.

There are 4 fixed groups of subjects namely Group A: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry; Group B: Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry; Group C: Literature, History, Geography; and Group D: Literature, Foreign Language, Mathematics. Besides these, there are also other groups.

If they get marks above pass mark with no “zero” mark in a subject, they will be given priority in university admissions.

Students taking part in the selection exam for international contests, usually known as Olympic contests, will be exempt from high school graduation exam, and those who are Olympic team members will be admitted into universities or colleges of their choice without sitting for an examination.

Moreover, they will get priority to study in a foreign country on scholarship, paid by the government.

In addition, the Ministry of Education and Training said it will organize oral tests in the national contest for excellent students in   foreign language contests and practice tests for Physics, Chemistry and Biology. However, they need to prepare a roadmap and suitable measures to implement such a program.

Dip Village’s School is located in Ia Kreng commune, a remote commune, which is more than 60 kilometres far from Pleiku City. The special thing of the school is that a lot of students still go to school every day, but they do not know why they should do that, and though they learn every day, their parents fear that they would never be able to read and handle figures.

Ro Cham Tham is considered the child with the highest education level in Siu Hoch’s family

Ro Cham Toan, a parent of Dip village said sadly: “My daughter goes to school. She is now a second grader, but she still cannot read and do sums. Surprisingly, she still can be moved up”.

“Sitting in wrong classes”

Toan’s daughter is not alone. This is the same situation of many other J’rai minority students in the commune.

Ro Cham Uoc, a seventh grader returned home in a school uniform with school bag on her hands, like many other students. However, Uoc surprised everyone, who visited his home on that morning when he showed that he could not read fluently a short text paragraph. With the support of some friends, Uoc read the paragraph very slowly, and sometimes, he had to skip some words to read the words familiar to him.

Uoc admitted that he could not do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division – the four basic operations, even though Uoc is now in the seventh grade. Of course, English, chemistry, history are also the “strange objects” to him, and he even does not know why he has to learn these subjects.

Ro Cham Tham is considered the child with the highest education level in Siu Hoch’s family. However, the fifth grader now only can read and write, while she still cannot do sums. After a lot of exertion, she could fulfill some exercises with the results as follows: 5 x 5= 10; 15 + 25 = 30; 15 – 5= 1 and 30 – 15 =…?

Tham said that there are 13 classmates in her class, and the knowledge of the classmates is the same with Tham’s. Su, the teacher, said that Rich, Hung and Thi are the three best students in the class, but they can only read and write, while they still need more time to practice doing mathematics questions.

Ro Cham Kao, a second grader, still cannot read. Especially, the boy said he still does not know the name of the teacher. Luckily, Kao now can use the pen to “draw” his name.

The guests to the Dip village felt lucky when they met Ro Cham Nghi, who has graduated from the secondary education level. Nghi told the visitors that he could do sums, he could read and write, and he knew everything better than anyone in the same village.

In order to show his ability, Nghi sat down and do some mathematics questions given by visitors. He finished doing the exercises after 20 minutes, but the results he showed were really “difficult to understand”: 19 x 27 = 143; 115 / 5= 25; 6 x 73 = 329 and 119 + 3.680 = 4870.

After finishing the work, Nghi signed his name beneath the results of the mathematics questions to affirm his “intellectual property” for his works.

Going to school – what’s it for?

The stories about the students who still can be moved up even though they cannot read and write really surprised many people, but not a strange thing at all to local residents. The parents here also cannot understand why their children go to school every day, but they know nothing and they still can be moved up a class.

The parent of Ro Cham Nghet, a seventh grader, admitted that his son still cannot read. When asked why the boy still goes to school, though he does not get any knowledge at school, the man said that he hopes the son can get something in knowledge next year, or the year after the next year.

“However, I myself do not know what we should bring him to school,” he admitted, adding that if his son does not go to school, people would criticize him for not encouraging children to learn for better knowledge.

 

source from: dtinews