The Ministry of Education and Training has just announced the draft Law on Teachers (3rd time) to collect public opinions.
According to Article 13 of the draft, the Ministry of Education and Training proposes to strictly prohibit a number of acts against teachers, including "Forcing students to participate in extra classes in any form, paying amounts of money outside of the provisions of the law".
Forcing students to take extra classes is common, so it is necessary to strictly prohibit the practice of forcing students to take extra classes. This is also a way to prevent the current rampant practice of extra teaching and learning.
The reason is that extra teaching and learning are common everywhere, in many forms such as tutoring, intensive English teaching, integrated teaching, advanced training, and exam preparation. These forms of extra teaching are never considered compulsory, because students “voluntarily register”.
But checking and determining whether it is compulsory or voluntary is not easy. No teacher would consider organizing extra classes and forcing students to participate.
According to the draft circular regulating extra teaching and learning by the Ministry of Education and Training recently, teachers are allowed to teach extra classes outside of school with their regular students, but they need to report and make a list (including the full name and class of the students) to the principal, and at the same time commit not to use any form of forcing students to take extra classes.
Anyone can make a complete report, in accordance with regulations, and send it to the principal. Anyone can commit to it.
So, frankly speaking, banning extra teaching in the form of "training" for money in schools can be done immediately, but controlling extra teaching activities outside of schools is a challenge for management agencies. Who will be the principal or the person who will inspect extra classes outside of schools, and who has the authority to do that?
In an extra class, there are students who come voluntarily, and there are students who join because they are afraid of being bullied by the teacher. How can we determine this? If we cannot determine this, there is no basis for handling it.
Returning to the provisions in the draft Law on Teachers, another thing that is very difficult to determine is the act of forcing "payment of money outside the provisions of the law". What is money outside the provisions of the law?
Open the door to extra teaching and learning, only prohibit "force". Students who attend extra classes must pay tuition, there is nothing illegal about this. Therefore, the draft regulation on prohibited behavior for teachers regarding this content is very difficult to clarify.
When applying the provisions of the law to life, but it is unclear, it is difficult to determine the violation, it is difficult to adjust, the law is as good as not existing.
