In early January, a grade-six schoolgirl at Phan Boi Chau Secondary School in HCM City’s Tan Phu District fainted after being reprimanded for failing to do the revision lesson. She had suffered an epileptic seizure and was rushed to Tan Phu Hospital, but later died. The girl's epilepsy was noted in her school records, but the teacher supervising the child was unaware of the notation.
In another case, a student of a secondary school in District 3 fainted after being forced to stand in the class’ corridor for failing to complete a lesson review. The teacher was unaware the student had a prehistory of hypoglycemia and was unable to stand for long periods of time.
Those cases, along with several other incidents at schools, have stirred public concern over the quality of heathcare services for students at schools as well as the responsibility borne by teachers for student health during school time.
Nguyen Thu Ha, principle at Chanh Hung Secondary School in District 8, said: “Health checkups for students at schools is cursory due to modest funding, which averages only a few thousands of VND per student. School medical care just simply provides monitoring of student dental health, weight, skin status and myopic issues, and fail to detect serious health problems, leaving that the responsibility of parents."
Even though teachers are required to be aware of the health status of all their students, they can only monitor the health of students in classes they act as a head teacher.
A deputy principle of a secondary school in District 3 said, “I do think that the lack of attention by subject teachers to a student's health status is a major problem. We have a list of students with health concerns and send it to all teachers. We’re really worried after recent incidents and always ask teachers to carefully check the health status of students and try to be gentle with students.”
A teacher, who is head teacher of a class where the student died of epilepsy, said that students with special health problems should be in separate classes so teachers can more closely monitor them without neglecting other students.
“In the northern Europe, they organise specialised classes for students with health problems," said Dr. Nguyen Khanh Trung, from the Institute for Research on Educational Development (IRED).
"Each class has only about 20 students. The government spends more on facilities and teachers at these classes. However, classes in Vietnam are too crowded, encompassing around 40 or 50 students, so teachers do not have enough time to carefully teach healthy students, let alone paying more attention to those with medical issues.”
Dr. Vu Thu Huong, a lecturer from the Hanoi University of Education, said that students with special health problems should not study a full day at school but just half a day in order to have time to meet specialised teachers or doctors in the afternoon.
The principle of a primary school in Go Vap District agreed, saying teachers are too busy to worry about students’ health status.
Another principle of a primary school in District 10 said, “Parents should play a key role in monitoring their children’s health and inform their children’s school and teachers to alert them to potential issues,”
Some said it was necessary to provide students with more life skills for their safety at school.
