The HCM City Education and Training Department has decided to terminate the Cambridge University’s English teaching curriculum at the city’s general schools and replace it with a new, integrated curriculum.

The headmaster of a primary school in District 3 of the city said that if the new integrated curriculum is applied, there will be five English teaching programs running at her school concurrently.

The program on learning English as an optional subject (2 periods per week, 45 minutes per period), implemented at 500 primary schools in HCM City, is described as “English literacy classes” – that is, a program on teaching English to beginners.

However, the program is now run only at suburban schools, where parents cannot afford expensive English classes for their children. Meanwhile, the “star” schools in District 1, such as Nguyen Binh Khiem, Le Ngoc Han and Hoa Binh, no longer maintain the classes.

According to the HCM City Education and Training Department, in the future, only two English curriculums will be applied. They include the intensive English teaching program and the so-called “English project” planned for 2020. The latter involves English teaching within the framework of the national foreign language teaching project.

However, an official of the department said there should indeed be many English programs available, allowing parents to choose the most suitable for their children.

The students of the Nguyen Van Troi Primary School in District 4, for example, have three choices: an intensive English program, English as an optional subject and the English project.

However, headmaster of the school Pham Thuy Ha said students now tend to refuse the program on learning English as an optional subject.

The education department’s report disclosed that, in the 2012-2013 academic year, HCM City had 19,590 first graders in 142 primary schools in the city who followed the English project program (4 periods per week).

However, though the program is well designed as assessed by the education department, it has not been favored by students.

At Nguyen Van Troi High School, there are only three English project classes and four intensive English classes. Meanwhile, Ha Thanh Hai, headmaster of the Luong The Vinh Primary School in District 7, also confirmed there are more intensive English programs than the English project classes at his school.

The headmaster of a prestigious primary school in District 1 said the school’s management board and parents don’t really want to organize the English classes as guided by the Ministry of Education and Training.

“The ministry said it will allocate a budget for English programs, so that schools can pay teachers, while students can learn English free of charge. However, no money has been allocated over the last two years,” she said.

“Parents would rather pay money for English lessons, provided that the curriculums are reasonable and their children can learn with native speakers,” she added.