According to Circular 19/2025/TT-BGDDT, officially effective from October 31, 2025, disciplinary measures of excluding students from classes and schools such as temporary suspension, school dismissal, and warning in advance for the whole school will be abolished. Instead, the highest disciplinary level for students who violate the discipline is only to write a self-criticism, with confirmation and commitment from the family.
The new regulation is considered humane by many people, but some teachers believe that it causes some difficulties in education and deterring students from violations.
Mr. Dinh Phu Cuong - Principal of Nguyen Van Luong Secondary School (Binh Phu Ward) shared: "As a teacher, I strongly share the humane viewpoint of the Ministry. However, in reality, this regulation causes many difficulties for teachers. Currently, students are given many rights, while their obligations are not clear. Some parents who violate their children do not cooperate, even cover up, leading to teachers being almost helpless".
According to him, the highest form according to regulations is only at the level of writing a review, causing the school's handling tools to lack deterrence.
"In reality, many cases of students repeating violations are continuous, but teachers do not have strong measures. There are students who have serious violations and need to be temporarily removed from the learning environment for training, but the new regulations do not allow it," Mr. Cuong expressed.
He said that in some special situations, there are necessary to take more severe disciplinary measures to ensure a healthy school environment while protecting the learning rights of the majority of other students.
Similarly, Mr. Hoang Dang, a teacher at a high school in Ho Chi Minh City, shared the reality that every year the press still posts news at this school and that school, students fight inside and outside the school gate, bring weapons to class or gather to cause trouble, ... although not much, it still happens. There are incidents that have caused very serious consequences.
"If serious acts are only punished by writing a self-criticism, if students know their mistakes and do not repeat the offense, it is very good, but if they continue to repeat the offense many times, the school will not know how to handle it because the regulations only go there, leading to a state of disregard for discipline," said Mr. Hoang Dang.
Mr. Hoang Duc Minh - Director of the Student Department - Ministry of Education and Training said that currently, in the spirit of educational innovation, taking students as the center, schools are aiming to build safe, healthy and friendly schools.
In that spirit, disciplinary measures in the new context are considered educational measures, aiming to remove previous sanctions and shift to a focus on education to regulate behavior.
