Education quality of non-public kinder gardens in Vietnam: A look from parents point of view

Along with the development of socio-economy, in order to meet the needs for schooling, the non-public education area (NPA) in Vietnam has gradually developed, especially for the kinder garden level. However, the development is not as expected with many scandals causing skepticism. The research investigates more than 1,700 parents - who have children in NPA kinder garden in 42 provinces shows that the NPA kinder gardens meet a decent expectation. The level of satisfaction is corresponding higher in urban areas, which were stand as school or foreign effects related. The level of satisfaction is lower in NPA kinder gardens sites/ classes that serve immigrant residents in industrial zones. However, there are a lot of NPA kinder gardens have not yet developed into a school, with low tuition fees or/and the establishment based on the private group of children and baby sister’s/ teachers are not professional trained. This shows that it is necessary to roundup the government''s investment in kinder gardens to develop into a proper school, to provide better education services to help children develop well, not to be afraid of going to school. For every child, regardless of class, each school day is a happy day.

EDUCATION QUALITY OF NON-PUBLIC KINDER GARDENS IN VIETNAM: A LOOK FROM PARENTS POINT OF VIEW Pham Thi Huyen, Tran Minh Dao Marketing Faculty, National Economics University Abstract Along with the development of socio-economy, in order to meet the needs for schooling, the non-public education area (NPA) in Vietnam has gradually developed, especially for the kinder garden level However, the development is not as expected with many scandals causing skepticism The research investigates more than 1,700 parents who have children in NPA kinder garden in 42 provinces shows that the NPA kinder gardens meet a decent expectation The level of satisfaction is corresponding higher in urban areas, which were stand as school or foreign effects related The level of satisfaction is lower in NPA kinder gardens sites/ classes that serve immigrant residents in industrial zones However, there are a lot of NPA kinder gardens have not yet developed into a school, with low tuition fees or/and the establishment based on the private group of children and baby sister’s/ teachers are not professional trained This shows that it is necessary to roundup the government's investment in kinder gardens to develop into a proper school, to provide better education services to help children develop well, not to be afraid of going to school For every child, regardless of class, "each school day is a happy day." Keywords: service quality, kinder garden units, non-public Introduction Vietnam national education system has been formed and developed for a long time and is relatively comprehensive variety of levels (i) pre-school (kindergarten); (ii) general education with primary, secondary and high schools; (iii) vocational education for elementary, intermediate, college and other vocational training; and (iv) higher education with undergraduate and postgraduate (referred to university education) For a long time, the educational services are mostly undertaken by the government through public educational units In 1997, according to Resolution No 90/1997/NQ-CP, the Government has allowed investors to participate in providing educational services The NPA education sector has emerged and developed rapidly, met the needs and reduced the pressure on public educational sector By the year 2017, the number of NPAs in Vietnam accounted for about 6.7% of the total number of the national education system, creating a study for about 6% of pupils and students nationwide (Pham Thi Huyen et al., 2018) This figure is rather modest compared to many countries in the region and in the world In terms of higher education, the percentage of students in NPA schools and the percentage of NC schools in Vietnam is only 14% and 19%, while those in Korea are 78% and 87%, and those in Japan are 77% and 86%, in the Philippines are 81% and 75%, in Malaysia are 92% and 39%, in Pakistan are 64% and 18% (Dam Quang Minh, Pham Minh Ly, 2014) 542 Kinder garden education, the first education of every human being, has been receiving the common interest of the whole society Under the Education Act (2009), kinder garden education carries on the nurture, care and educates children between three months and six years old The goal is to help children develop physically, emotionally, intellectually and aesthetically, and to form personality, to prepare children for the first grade Since 1946, after more than 60 years since the Ho Chi Minh's Ordinance No 146/SL in education published, the number of kinder garden education facilities has so far reached 14,881, meeting the needs of 5,085,635 children, of which there are 2,288 nonpublic schools, meeting the needs of care and learning of 672,353 children In the nonpublic education areas, the number of education units and pupils of pre-school education accounts for the highest proportion NPA kinder gardens account for 15.37% of kinder gardens; groups of NPA children accounts for 32.24%, while NPA primary school enrollment is 1.1%; secondary school is 0.5% and high school accounts for 14.1% at the same level At present, non-public kinder garden facilities in Viet Nam are organized in three forms: semi-public, private and public sector, in which private sector takes the biggest proportion due to the inadequacies and privatizations often associated with large facilities, which are licensed to the school Due to the increasing demands of parents, many NPA kinder gardens have become more advantageous in terms of facilities, programs and young teachers However, it is undeniable that there are still a number of private and non-public units that have not yet ensured the quality of facilities and teachers Hence, child abuse does not only affect the development of the child but also discourages public opinion, causing a lack of sympathy with NPA education in general Assessment and quality assurance in these units becomes more necessary than ever before Based on the survey of the whole non-public facilities in the end of 2017 to assess the quality of NPA education, the paper focuses on analyzing the quality of NPA kinder garden education The paper includes the following: (i) Overview of the early childhood education services quality; (ii) Research methodology; (iii) Discussions (iv) Conclusions and recommendations Overview of the early childhood education service quality Education has become a fundamental element of promoting social development through positive effects on the aspects or processes, creating social development In general, education is understood as the process of formation and development personality under the influence of activities performed consciously by staff in the school, the family and the society For example: the impact of knowledge and skill sharing, lifestyle, the sharing of books and magazines or education, having targeted effects, is a systematic and structured system It also has specialized system (the school) that the educators create positive effects on the personality development In a narrow meaning, education is understood as the process of forming and developing the learner‘s personality It is impacted by the school's pedagogical activities, which only concern some aspects: education, physical education and labor education 543 According to the WTO (1995) and Decision No 10/2007/QD-TTG (2007), education is a form of service in economic sectors; educational services are linked to specific education and training activities, such as providing courses, training programs, learning materials, teaching equipment‘s consultant and training courses… (Phung Huu Phu et al., 2016) The evaluation of service quality in education is generally based on the theory of service quality Units must also compete with each other and competitiveness depends on the quality, which similar to a company has a competitive advantage when it comes to improve service quality and meeting demand (Parasuraman et al., 1991) Parasuraman et al (1985) suggest that service quality is the gap between customer expectations and perceptions after using the service Grönroos (2007) reevaluates the service quality based on a comparison of customer expectations on their previous service Some studies use customer satisfaction to evaluate service quality Service quality is then reflected in the ability to satisfy the needs and expectations of customers with that product (Bergman & Klefsjo, 2004) Customer satisfaction can be considered as a result and service quality is the cause of such satisfaction (Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Spreng and MacKoy, 1996) They are therefore closely related (Parasuraman et al., 1988) Similar to other services, educational services may also be assessed through satisfaction of the beneficiaries or with respect to the provision of it The quality of education and training services is reflected in the evaluation of learners, trainers, managers and users of training products (Dang Thi Ngoc Ha, 2017) Many schools try to measure parent‘s satisfaction to assess the quality of their education (Brown, Cheng, Yau, & Ziegler 1992; Hecht, O'Connell, Michael, Klass, Dwyer, 1992 Henderson, 1993; Pederson & Wilk, 1993.) Runtti & Virtanen (2015) evaluates parents' satisfaction on the quality of education and childcare at the Finland International School in Qatar, on the following aspects: (i) the children‘s treatment and support (creating excitement, individual learning, learning process), (ii) the quality of the teacher (teacher, teaching) and (iii) the cooperation between parents and schools (communication, cooperation) Falbo and his colleagues evaluate the parents‘ satisfaction on a scale of 10, based on what their children received at school, the level of satisfaction increased Vu Nhu Vuong (2012) synthesize the research and develop a theoretical model of parent‘s satisfaction in Ho Chi Minh City pre-school, including factors of reliability, responsiveness, competence, empathy, tangibles, and cost In Vietnam, the service quality of the education units is reflected in the government‘s recognition The government assesses the ranking of kinder gardens up to national standards Two levels of national standard schools are levels and level 2, which are specified in the kinder gardens recognition Regulation It is issued with Circular No 02/2014/TT-BGDĐT 08 February 2014 by the Minister of Education and Training Accordingly, kinder gardens are evaluated on (i) organizational and managerial aspects; (ii) teachers and staff; (iii) quality of child care and education; (iv) size, facilities and equipment; and (v) educational socialization In this paper, (i) teachers and staff; (ii) facilities; (iii) Curriculum, methods and syllabus; (iv) Support service; (v) Tuition fee and other financial contributions are factors will be use for measuring parents‘ satisfaction to education services at NPA kinder garden units 544 Research methodology This research approaches the service quality from parents‘ perspectives who selected facilities for their children to attend as pre-school children are not able to evaluate and share the service quality of units However, the parents not experience educational activities in the school so the team conducted in-depth interviews with administrators, investors, some teachers and parents at the NPA kinder garden The aim is to better understand the needs and to select the criteria of service quality evaluation Based on that, a questionnaire is designed to collect the necessary information on (i) organization management and operation; (ii) teachers and staff; (iii) facilities; (iv) curriculum, methods and syllabus; (v) support services and tuition fee The study uses a Likert scale of (degree of agreement is increasing)1 Descriptive statistics technique is used to analyze data from the questionnaire with the support of SPSS 20.0 software Based on Yamane's formula (1967): n = N / (1 + N * e2) Where n is the sample size, N is the sample size, e is the level of precision The total number of children in NPA kinder gardens following the Ministry of Education and Training report in the 2016-2017 school year is 836,153, the error is 5%, the confidence level is 95%, assuming the number of children and the number of parents is equally, the minimum sample size is 400 The survey is conducted based on the reliable statistics of target groups As a result, there are 1731 parents of pre-schools in 42 provinces around Vietnam participated in the survey, with the specific structure as shown in Table 1.1 Table 1.1 Sample’s demographic characteristics No Criteria Freq Proportion (%) Gender No Male 532 33,8 Female 1043 66,2 Parents’ age Criteria Freq Proportion (%) Income/month Under 20 million 1142 74,1 From 20-30 million 293 19,0 From 30-45 million 68 4,4 Under 25 112 7,1 From 45-60 million 27 1,8 25-34 913 57,5 Over 60 million 11 0,7 35-49 525 33,1 50-60 32 2,0 kid 622 41,4 Over 60 0,3 kids 769 51,2 Education level Under high school College University Post graduate 432 363 588 106 29,0 24,4 39,5 7,1 kids Over kids Source Direct Indirect 100 12 6,7 0,8 Number of kids 1506 87,0 225 13,0 Source: Summary of NPA kinder gardens‟ survey, 2017 The average score is used to measure satisfaction (Koobgrabe et al., 2008), in particular: 1.00 - 1.80, which means Absolutely unsatisfied; 1.81 - 2.60 means Dissatisfied; 2.61 - 3.40 means Neutral; 3.41 - 4.20 means Satisfied; 4.21 - 5.00 means Really satisfied 545 The proportion of female parents participating in the survey is greater Parents' income is different, but most of them are less than 20 million VND / month There are parents who earn more, which more than 3% of parents earn over 45 million VND/month This reflects precisely the different segments of kindergarden education provision There are many pre-school tuition fees at an average of several hundred thousand dong per month There are also schools with tuition fees up to 90- over 100 million dong per month Most of them are young, which more than 65% is under 35 years old Most families have 1-2 kids Regarding education level, parents who have children studying in NPA kindergarden are mostly bachelors and above The diversity of the sample makes it possible to express the opinions of different parent groups as reflected in the results of this study Results 4.1 Baby sisters/ teachers The results of parents' assessment on baby sisters/teachers and staffs are generally good and very good, parents are satisfied with the teachers, rating at 4.3 In particular, parents most satisfied with the teacher who always care and help children; very friendly, respect children; have a positive spirit, cooperate with parents Professional qualifications and knowledge of child care are underestimated but still at a good level Good nurturing knowledge Enthusiasm supporters Willing to help Good moral Good Attitude Good pedagogy'skills High professional knowledge Teachers in general 4.10 4.15 4.20 4.25 4.30 4.35 4.40 Figure The evaluation of teachers and staffs Source: Summary of NPA kinder gardens‟ survey, 2017 Differences in sampling, gender, age, education and income of the parents make the teachers‘ assessment have little difference Direct respondents give lower scores (average score 4.28) than those who answer online (4.46) There are no significant differences between male and female parents There is slightly difference in groups of different ages and income levels In particular, the elder the parent is, the better the assessment is Education level is similar, the higher the education level is, the greater level of satisfaction is Of course, their children, coming from different social level, study in different facilities When comparing parent groups with different income levels, the lowest rating coming from those with incomes is less than $ 20 million (4.11), while the parents with the best rating are those with income highest input (4.59) 546 In fact, the majority of NPA teachers are young, enthusiastic, active but less experienced However, due to the specific characteristics and Vietnamese culture, they not stick to the NPA units Therefore, despite the abundant supply of teachers, the quality is not uniform, staff disturbance affects the psychology of a child as he/she needs to get used to a new teacher Naturally, this is partly offset by high quality NPA kinder gardens, where they have a good salary policy However, they apply a rigorous recruitment process and a regular review mechanism to pay salary and sign labor contract Therefore, kinder garden teachers are always under huge pressure Hence, NPA kinder gardens have the advantage of having a lower child-to-teacher ratio than the public sector, which is 15.76 and 17.93 per cent respectively in the 2016-2017 school years at the kindergarten level and 10.43 and 9.91 at the nursery level (Ministry of Education and Training, 2017) 4.2 Facilities Elements of facilities are assessed including the learning materials and the structure of the basic buildings according to the Regulation of the Pre-School (Decision No 04 / BHN-BGDDT dated 24 December 2015 by the Ministry of Education and training) Facilities at NPA kindergarten have been evaluated by parents with a good score at the average of 4.11 / Surface administrative facilities Abundant Visual aids Adequacy sporting room, art and kitchen room Suffering common area Adequate playing place Adequate school area Facilities in general 3.96 4.01 4.06 4.11 4.16 Figure The evaluation of facilities Source: Summary of NPA kinder gardens‟ survey, 2017 In terms of facilities, common living room, bedroom and garden, play area achieved the best rating The administrative department and the learning materials have lower average scores (4.05 and 4.07 respectively) Kindergarten children, kinder gardeners not have much contact with administrators, but the problem of learning materials is still a matter of support and concern Beside the faculties equipped with modern learning materials and systems as diverse as in HCMC Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Bac Ninh, there are also lacking in learning materials, teaching aids, even toys for children like in Lang Son, Dak Lak, Dak Nong There is slightly difference between online and direct responses, NPA kinder garden facilities are better with online responses than those who respond directly (4, 26 and 4.08); Similarly, female is more satisfied than men (GPA 4.11 and 4.07) There is not much difference between parent groups in terms of gender, age, education level in NPA kinder gardens‘ assessments 547 4.3 Curriculum, methods and syllabus The curriculum of NPA kinder gardens mainly follows the standard curriculum of the Ministry of Education and Training However, there are also a number of schools that use other instructional programs or teach other programs such as Montessori, the MOET's only additional program Assessment of the curriculum, methods and content of teaching is generally good but not equal to the assessment of the teacher, staff and facilities, Full of art clubs Applied encouraging Educate with physical activities Talented nurturing activities Attractive field activies Appropriate curriculum Curriculum, methods and syllabus in general 3.60 3.70 3.80 3.90 4.00 4.10 4.20 4.30 Figure The evaluation of curriculum, methods and syllabus Source: Summary of NPA kinder gardens‟ survey, 2017 The curriculum (4.25) is the best criteria The curriculum combines knowledge with physical training and skills; encouraging students to apply in real life as well as extracurricular activities are also parents' happy points about the curriculum More experience can help children to develop comprehensively both physically, intellectually and mentally Parents expect more at NPA kinder gardens‘ clubs for children (the lowest rating on the program overall, reaching 3.73 out of 5) 4.4 Supporting services In terms of support services, with in-depth interviews, parents are more interested in these services as most of them are not provided by public kinder gardens The level of satisfaction for support services is good (4.07), which are lower than other aspects The best service is canteen and boarding (4.07) Other services Shutter bus services out-of-working hour services Cantin General supporting services 3.80 3.85 3.90 3.95 4.00 4.05 4.10 4.15 4.20 4.25 Figure The evaluation of support service Source: Summary of NPA kinder gardens‟ survey, 2017 548 4.5 Tuition fee and other financial contribution Regarding tuition fees, parents are relatively happy about tuition and other fees at NPA kindergarten viewed from an economic perspective, consumers decide to buy the product when they think that the product value is commensurate with the price Therefore, although there is much information in the public opinion about the unreasonable of NPA tuition fees, many still have demand for their children to study at these facilities Flexble approach for tuition payment Flexible tuition fee policy Other financial contribution… Reasonalble tuition fee Financial and tuition fee 3.95 4.05 4.1 4.15 Figure Tuition fee in the parents’ viewpoint Source: Summary of NPA kinder gardens‟ survey, 2017 When comparing parent groups in age different, the level of satisfaction with tuition fee for parents aged 25-34 is the lowest Parents with incomes around 45-60 million VND and spending around 5-10 million VND on their children are the most satisfied groups Table The evaluation of support service and tuition fee Groups Sources Direct Gender Age Support Finance, Service tuition fee 4,01 4,09 Online 4,17 Male Female Groups Education level Support Finance, Service tuition fee Under high school 3,92 4,09 4,13 College 4,01 4,11 4,03 4,11 University 4,09 4,09 4,03 4,09 Postgraduate 4,21 4,18 Under 25 3,95 4,14 Total Under 20 million 4,00 4,08 25-34 4,02 4,09 Income/month From 20-