Organizing 2 sessions/day: Flexible arrangement, ensuring voluntary and appropriate

Organizing 2 sessions/day in general schools is very necessary to achieve the goal of comprehensive education, developing students' capacity; thereby also contributing to creating convenience for parents in taking and picking up their children to school. However, the implementation and organization in schools today is not synchronous and unified, especially the arising problems such as unreasonable timetable arrangement, too many associated subjects, voluntary subjects with fees in schools... make parents worried.

Organizing two sessions a day in general schools is very necessary to achieve the goal of comprehensive education and develop students' abilities. Photo: Manh Linh/Tin Tuc Va Dan Toc Newspaper

The education sector's guidelines for organizing two sessions a day allow schools to flexibly arrange teaching time between sessions 1 and 2. Therefore, the arrangement of timetables in each school is different, depending on actual conditions.

Ms. Thu Phuong, whose child is in 8th grade in Long Phuoc ward, Ho Chi Minh City, shared that at the beginning of the school year, the homeroom teacher announced that this year the school would organize 3 joint subjects based on the voluntary participation of students, including life skills, STEM and English with foreigners. Due to concerns about effectiveness and increased costs, Ms. Phuong did not let her child study all the subjects but only English with foreigners. After that, she continuously received phone calls from the homeroom teacher persuading her to register her child to study all 3 subjects.

According to Ms. Phuong, it is worth mentioning that the school's timetable is not arranged properly when it intersperses voluntary subjects into regular school hours, but there are few other educational activities for students if they do not participate. Organizing voluntary subjects at the end of each class or on weekends would be more appropriate.

Similarly, Ms. Mai Nhung (Long Truong ward) was also called by her child's homeroom teacher to persuade her child to register for voluntary subjects. Although her child's class schedule had arranged voluntary subjects for the late afternoon, the teacher said that if her child did not participate, she would not be allowed to leave because of the rule of not finishing school before 4 p.m. Ms. Nhung said that parents were happy when there was a policy of reducing the curriculum and exempting tuition fees, but the school added many associated, voluntary subjects (with fees), which confused parents and increased financial pressure. For a family with special circumstances, raising two children alone like Ms. Nhung, spending a few hundred thousand more on voluntary study content is a significant expense.

From the perspective of industry management, Mr. Ho Tan Minh, Chief of Office of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City emphasized that the educational environment in schools is an equal environment for all students. The goal of organizing the 2-session/day program is to create a comprehensive educational environment, meeting the requirements of developing students' capacity; in addition to the knowledge required, students need to develop skills, arts and sports .

Organizing the implementation of the 2-session/day program and arranging the timetable is the responsibility of the school principal, ensuring both the duration of the official program and the organization of the school program content as well as the compliance with the regulations on study time during the day. In case students do not participate in voluntary study content, the school must organize other educational activities, clubs, sports, reading, and arts for students to participate.

According to Mr. Minh, with the contents of the school program, parents have the right to choose the necessary learning content, suitable for their children on a voluntary basis and do not necessarily have to participate in learning all the content. However, with the goal of comprehensive education and the current social context, investing in more learning content about skills for their children is very necessary.

Reality shows that skills education content is necessary, the problem is that schools must arrange reasonable timetables, in parallel with promoting free educational activities for students to participate.

Nguyen Van Luong Secondary School, Phu Binh Ward, currently organizes classes 5 days a week. Along with the main subjects, the school organizes 2 more associated subjects: English with foreigners and International Information Technology. Mr. Dinh Phu Cuong, Principal of the school, said that in addition to the 2 associated subjects for students to voluntarily register to participate, the school organizes a variety of educational activities according to the school program (free of charge), the strongest being sports clubs from soccer, badminton to swimming... The contents of the school program (including paid and free content) are all arranged with separate schedules, not included in the fixed, official timetable of the school. Accordingly, these contents will be organized from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day, including weekends.

At Truong Cong Dinh Secondary School (Gia Dinh Ward), teaching is currently organized 5 days/week, each day has 7 main periods and some sessions have an additional 8th period as school education activities. Accordingly, the school has 4 subjects in the school education program in the form of cooperation with units, including: Native English, International Information Technology, Life Skills and STEM. Mr. Pham Thai Ho, Principal of the school, said that the school coordinates with the cooperation centers to consider fee exemptions for students with difficult circumstances, if they have the need to participate in the study. On Saturday mornings, the school organizes clubs and reviews and trains excellent students.

Source: https://baotintuc.vn/ban-tron-giao-duc/to-chuc-day-hoc-2-buoingay-sap-xep-linh-hoat-dam-bao-tu-nguyen-phu-hop-20250929115405310.htm