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

1 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)

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 public schools, meeting the needs of care and learning of 672,353 children In the non-public 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

2 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

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 1 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 5 factors will be use for measuring parents‘ satisfaction to education services at NPA kinder garden units

3 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 do 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 5 (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

Proportion (%)

Source: Summary of NPA kinder gardens‟ survey, 2017

1

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

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

4 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

Figure 1 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)

Teachers in general

High professional knowledge

Good pedagogy'skills

Good Attitude

Good moral Willing to help

Enthusiasm supporters

Good nurturing knowledge

In fact, the majority of NPA teachers are young, enthusiastic, active but less experienced However, due to the specific characteristics and Vietnamese culture, they do 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 / 5

Figure 2 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 do 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

Facilities in general Adequate school area Adequate playing place Suffering common area Adequacy sporting room, art and kitchen room

Abundant Visual aids Surface administrative facilities

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,

Figure 3 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)

Figure 4 The evaluation of support service

Source: Summary of NPA kinder gardens‟ survey, 2017

Curriculum, methods and syllabus in general

Appropriate curriculum Attractive field activies Talented nurturing activities Educate with physical activities

Applied encouraging Full of art clubs

General supporting services

Cantin out-of-working hour services

Shutter bus services

Other services

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

Figure 5 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 2 The evaluation of support service and tuition fee

Service

Finance,

Support Service

Finance, tuition fee

Income/month

Source: Summary of NPA kinder gardens‟ survey, 2017

4.5 Overall satisfaction

Overall satisfaction on NPA kinder garden is assessed at the bottom of the survey Combined with the results of the assessment of the aspects of the above, we have:

Financial and tuition fee Reasonalble tuition fee Other financial contribution…

Flexible tuition fee policy

Flexble approach for tuition payment

Figure 6 The overall evaluation of NPA kinder gardens

Source: Summary of NPA kinder gardens‟ survey, 2017

The overall assessment is in line with the assessment, and parents are generally satisfied with the quality of their current educational services (the overall score is 4.14) Teachers, staff (4.3) are the best factors, at a very good level Support services (4.03) and teaching programs, methods and content (4.06) have the lowest scores

Parents who respond online are more satisfied than parents who respond directly There are no differences between male and female in the overall assessment; the higher the age is, the higher the satisfaction level is (GPA 3.94 to 4.7); the higher the level of education is, the better the evaluation is (4.02 to 4.35); and the higher the income is, the better the evaluation is (average score from 4.11 to 4.39) There are no differences in the ratings of different parent groups across gender

5 Conclusions and recommendations

From the perspective of service recipients, parents are relatively satisfied with the quality of NPA kinder garden education in Vietnam, particularly in terms of teachers and staff; infrastructure; tuition; curriculum, methods and syllabus; and support services The gender, age, education level and average income of different parents vary somewhat Gender differences are the least and the difference is most pronounced at age

Although there are still problems with private facilities, parents are fairly satisfied with the service quality in NPA kinder gardens Moreover, since the pre-school education sector has not had the government investment, the existence and development of NPA units

is a natural tendency Quality control first belongs to those units in order to attract students

At the same time, government management agencies in education should set standards to ensure the operation of these units, not to co-ordinate NPAs but with communication and information disclosure It is a great way for parents to choose reputable units and to help parents become fully aware of the quality and standards of kinder gardens

The government should strictly punish the units who do not meet the minimum requirements or who commit acts of violence, ill-treatment, etc do not comply with regulations on raising children At the same time, the communication needs to be oriented

to avoid distortions of social comment about the NPA units in general At the same time,

Babies sisters Facilities Curriculum Supporting services Tuition fee and financial contributions

Satisfaction level

parents should be proactive in understanding the status of the units, setting up camera requirements to monitor the school's operations and making constructive contributions

The choice of kinder garden units depends on a number of factors, including income and affordability that will affect the tuition fees, and for each tuition fee, the quality of service will vary Therefore, the government should have policies for the development of NPA education centers in densely populated areas in order to control quality at the same time, to share the burden with the units and parents

Local authorities also need to have policies and provide specific, timely and effective support to encourage the development of NPAs in general and kinder garden education in particular, particularly in highly developing areas or having good economic conditions However, the development of NPA should come from changing, directing the development of the public sector is appropriate, direction, planning and clear roadmap

Survey results show that, when selecting kinder garden, the parents are most concerned about the program; school reputation; infrastructure; school location; cost and then the introduction of relatives, friends As a result, the most concerned aspects are the aspects with the lowest score / satisfaction Therefore, NPA kinder garden children need to continue to promote their strengths and invest in facilities These are the visual characteristics have the greatest impact on the feelings of parents At the same time, investments in programs and teacher qualifications must be emphasized These are factors that many parents are concerned about, which is the factor that can bring the most sustainable reputation for the school

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