About 7km from her child's school, last school year, Ms. Hoang Ngan (HCMC) and her child always left home at 6:30 and arrived at school before 7:15 to meet their child's school start time.
Ms. Ngan said that waking up early to go to school caused her child to fall asleep on the motorbike many days.
"Now I go to school later and have more time to eat and drink in the morning, I also eat with my child, then take him to school and continue to move to the workplace, 1km from school. That is suitable for me," said Ms. Ngan.
The school's decision to postpone the start of school later but not change the departure time was also agreed by Kieu Nga - an 11th grade student in Ben Thanh Ward.
Kieu Nga said that her house is about 6km from school, so last school year, female students always wake up at 5:30 am to be ready to go to school and start school at 7:15 am. Kieu Nga moves by personal electric bicycle.
"Schools start school late and I will still wake up at 5:30 am, but there will be more time for personal hygiene, breakfast... no longer too much time to attend," Kieu Nga shared.
Meanwhile, Mr. Cong Hung (Tan Dong Hiep ward) said that his daughter does not take a boarding course at school, so he hopes the school will keep the same class hours at 7:15 a.m. as before, but finishes the morning class earlier so that her daughter can go home for lunch, rest and continue to study in the afternoon.
According to the new regulations, from this school year, students will study a maximum of 7 periods/day instead of 8 periods as before. Therefore, many schools have proactively adjusted school hours to ensure both teaching time and keep school dismissal time at around 4pm - in line with the pick-up and drop-off schedule of most parents.
At Nguyen Du Secondary School (Ben Thanh Ward), the morning class time for this new school year has been adjusted to 7:30 (the previous school year was 7:15), the afternoon starts from 1:30 p.m. instead of 1 p.m. School dismissal time is around 16:30-35, similar to the previous school year.
Mr. Cao Duc Khoa - Principal of the school said that with the duration of 7 periods/day, the adjustment is necessary and parents approve.
"This adjustment helps students and parents have more time to prepare and move more comfortably. At the same time, when implementing 2 sessions/day, the school arranged a lunch break from 11am to 1:30pm for students to eat and sleep in the boarding house. This arrangement both ensures that students have reasonable time to rest and helps the school adjust the school dismissal time to 4:20 p.m. - in line with the time frame for parents to pick up and drop off and contribute to traffic flow," said Mr. Khoa.
Mr. Khoa added that he had instructed security guards to always open school gates early every day so that parents with work could still take their children to school early and play until school.
