HCMC: Immediately stop letting students leave school at 3pm

(Dan Tri) - In Ho Chi Minh City, there are schools that let students finish school at 3:00 p.m. or 3:30 p.m., making it difficult for parents to pick up and drop off their children.

"Schools must immediately stop letting students go home at 3 p.m. and then asking parents to pick them up. The education sector cannot make things difficult for parents like that," Mr. Ho Tan Minh, Chief of Office of the Department of Education and Training, emphasized at a meeting with junior high and high school principals on September 10.

According to Mr. Minh, currently many primary, secondary and high schools in the area have inappropriate schedules for students.

Some schools let students finish school at 3:00 p.m. or 3:30 p.m., making it difficult for parents to pick up and drop off their children. Even parents who are officials and specialists of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City are also facing this problem.

Mr. Minh said that in the near future, the Department will guide the class start time for all levels to have consistency. It is expected that the morning school start time will be from 7am, latest 8am, depending on the grade level. The morning school end time will be around 10:30am onwards, the afternoon school will not end before 4:30pm.

Parents pick up their children after school (Illustration: Thanh Dong).

Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City Nguyen Bao Quoc also emphasized that schools need to calculate class entry and exit times so that parents can conveniently pick them up and drop them off.

"Some schools teach 5 periods in the morning, only 2 periods in the afternoon and then let the students go home, which is not acceptable," said Mr. Quoc.

These shortcomings partly stem from a misunderstanding of the regulations on teaching 2 sessions/day. According to the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Education and Training in early August, the maximum number of periods is 7 periods/day. According to this schedule, students will leave school at 3:00 p.m.

The regulation of a maximum of 7 classes per day also caused some secondary schools to change their timetables, adding a Saturday morning class.

Explaining this content, Mr. Nguyen Bao Quoc, Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training, said that the guidance of the Ministry of Education and Training is applied to the official curriculum.

“Schools can arrange different content in some sessions, meaning they can teach up to eight periods per day,” he explained.

In addition, Mr. Quoc said that the school's schedule of 4 periods in the morning and 4 periods in the afternoon would be more convenient for parents to pick up and drop off.

However, he stressed that schools have the flexibility to arrange their schedules between the Ministry's program and the school's, but the Department encourages students not to have to go to school on Saturdays.

If there are weekend study arrangements, schools should use them to nurture excellent students, tutor underachieving students, or organize sports clubs based on the students' voluntary and proactive spirit.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/giao-duc/tphcm-dung-ngay-viec-cho-hoc-sinh-tan-hoc-vao-luc-15h-20250911063134150.htm