The Effects of School Starting Age: A Case of Primary School Students in Vietnam

Abstract

Many parents have the mentality that they want their children to study well and outperform their peers, therfore, they have a lot of expectations and investments in their children from an early age. The children have a busy childhood with a tight schedule of extra classes, from giftedness to English, etc. Parents are free to show off to friends and relatives that they know a lot and are wise before their age. This matter has become not only an argumentation between parents but also an unsolvable problem for the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam. Therefore, it is a serious issue to determine how much preparation is enough for children to start elementary schools. Two main opinions have been given out: the first opinion points out that children need to study before starting elementary schools while the second opinion is contrary to the first one. The paper is done by searching, collecting and summarizing the information on magazines, newspapers and the internet which is related to the topic and analyzing the statistics collected from students currently studying at some schools in two weeks.