The modern school system measures students' academic performance based on standardized curriculum and testing. This means that students who have not mastered the provided curriculum have limited chances to excel academically. This is the case with most marginalized students whose backgrounds limit their ability to learn the curriculum content and excel in the tests. Some of the high-risk backgrounds include the racial and socioeconomic status of the learner. For instance, students living in poverty, immigrants, and students of color are often less successful in the contemporary education system. Other marginalized learners are those that have learning or developmental disability or have limited proficiency in the English language. Discrimination against these students may cause permanent damage to their self-esteem and confidence and limit their opportunities to learn and excel in academics.
In the United States, students from high-risk backgrounds often receive inferior instruction compared to those from mainstream backgrounds. The marginalized learners are usually placed in bottom reading groups, which further derail their learning. Studies done across the United States indicate that most schools subject the marginalized learners to assessments that do not value their language and culture. Also, the teaching methods employed by the teachers do not build on the strengths of the students’ culture and language. This significantly impacts the students’ outcome in their academic performance. The teachers also have low expectations for marginalized students; hence, they fail to present them with challenging tasks that would adequately prepare them for the examinations. During my K-12 learning experience in Vietnam, this aspect was dominant in that students from low-income homes were expected to perform poorly compared to those from high-income households (Owens, 2018). Few programs and schools across the world produce successful educational outcomes for marginalized learners. One such program that has enabled learners to achieve significant success is the tutoring program. In Vietnam, which is my native country, private tutoring has been embraced as a means of elevating the academic performance of marginalized learners.
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Socio-Economic Context of Vietnam
Vietnam is arguably one of the rapidly developing economies in the world. The education sector has experienced significant growth over the last two decades. This can be attributed to the initiatives by the government to elevate the level of education in the country. Statistics indicate that more than 89 percent of Vietnamese citizens have participated in organized education in the last decade. The rapid economic growth has enabled most of the citizens to acquire basic services such as education and healthcare. The government has come up with policies to improve the quality of education in public schools to ensure sustainable economic growth (Huong, & Fry, 2004. However, the quality of education in the public sector remain relatively lower compared to that in the private sector. Also, the social and economic class of some Vietnamese citizens still determines the quality of education that their children receive. For instance, the high-income and middle-class families can afford the resources to facilitate the acquisition of learning materials for their children. Some of the families can also afford to take their children to private schools where the quality of education is higher than in public schools. The private schools have adequate learning resources and a safe environment that enables the students to thrive academically. Minority and low-income students, therefore, tend to perform significantly lower than their privileged equivalents in private learning institutions. For this reason, private tutoring has become an option for many families who wish to give their children a competitive advantage in academic excellence.
Analysis of the Tutoring Program
Tutoring classes in Vietnam have played a significant role to assist learners who have fallen back in the regular class work. Most of the classes are offered after the school day, where parents engage tutors for their children. The tutors often assist the learners in acquiring necessary skills in Maths, Reading, Science, and Writing, among other basic skills. The skills often enable the learner to catch up in the class work, thus improve their academic performance. Tutoring classes also offer language and computer lessons that assist learners in the mastering of the curriculum content during regular classes. The language tutoring classes play a crucial role in helping the non-native students to acquire language skills that boost their content mastery. Language literacy has a significant impact on academic excellence. For instance, learning English in my K-12 opened opportunities for me to pursue further education in the United States. It has also given me a chance to become a tutor in a U.S college where English in the first language. The private tutoring has a significant positive impact on marginalized learners, especially those in public schools. The individual time with the tutor gives the student personalized attention from the teacher. This also enables the tutor to identify the weakness of the child hence major in those areas to uplift their academic performance.
The debate on the widespread use of private tutors in Vietnam has become a common topic in the media. The Ministry of Education and Training and the National Assembly have, on several occasions, discussed the matter (Hirosato & Kitamura, 2019). The critics of private tutoring have pushed the government to ban extra classes within the school premises. However, the practice has continued outside the school premises and after school hours because parents have realized the benefits of the program to their children’s academic performance. Private tutoring has become so popular among the Vietnamese citizens to the extent some parents hire tutors for children who have not entered the first grade. Several reasons make parents subscribe their children to the tutoring programs.
First, some students may have low academic ability, which makes them lag in regular class learning (Hirosato & Kitamura, 2019). Some may be slow to learn complex class concepts. The tutoring programs allow these learners to compensate for their low ability to learn by getting personalized attention from the tutor. Secondly, some students may have the inability to understand complex concepts because they did not learn the basic ones. Some fail to understand classroom lectures hence perform poorly in examinations. Tutoring allows them to acquire the basic skills that boost their understanding of the complex concepts taught in regular classes. Lastly, parents may enroll their children in the program so that they can be prepared for examinations. Some of the students may not be conversant with effective revision methods that can boost their academic excellence.
The tutoring programs have, therefore, significantly boosted academic performance in minority students by ensuring that they are adequately prepared for examinations. Some may not be in a position to afford private tuition for their children, but those who are determined like my parents strive to hire private tutors to assist their parents. Also, the fact that it has become a popular program in Vietnam, the cost of hiring a private tutor is relatively cheaper. This enables most families to afford a tutor for their children.
If a similar program were to be adopted in learning institutions across the United States, significant improvement in the academic performance of marginalized learners would be realized. For instance, Professor Werhner from Seminole State College, Florida has incorporated the program in part in his teaching methods. For example, he gives intensive coaching to students who are weak in physics to ensure that they acquire skills that will enable them to keep up with regular classes. To achieve this, Werhner has taken the responsibility to know each student in his class at a personal level to better understand their background limitations that would obstruct their academic excellence. He then gives such students personalized basic instructions that enable them to build upon the concepts taught in regular classes. Understanding the background of the learners has also enabled Werhner to understand the varying potential of the students, thus focus on the weaker students to uplift their self-esteem. This initiative has produced significant improvement in the physics subject performance at Seminole State College. The marginalized students in his class can now compete equally with the rest of their classmates. This has challenged other tutors in the organization to embrace the initiative to ensure academic excellence of all their students.
In conclusion, the tutoring programs in Vietnam are a perfect example of how to handle the marginalized students to ensure their academic excellence. Discrimination of the marginalized students may have a significant toll on their emotional stability, which may lead to poor academic performance. Also, discrimination that occurred when a learner underwent training in a lower grade level may have an impact on the academic performance in the current grade. The learners may have failed to acquire the necessary competent skills that assist them in regular learning classes. I would, therefore, appeal to all the teachers to make a personalized effort to ensure that all the students have the competency skills to compete with their classmates fairly. Learning about my cultural background and having competency in the English language had a significant impact on the positive outcome of my academic performance. I understand how difficult it can be to learn in an environment where you do not feel appreciated. Creating a learner-friendly environment should be a priority to ensure that all students, marginalized or not have an equal opportunity to acquire education.
References
Hirosato, Y., & Kitamura, Y. (2019). The Political Economy of Educational Reforms and Capacity Development in Southeast Asia. Retrieved from https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=aJek5arAW9MC&lpg=PA212&dq=private%20tutoring%20classes%20in%20vietnam%20for%20marginalized%20students&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=private%20tutoring%20classes%20in%20vietnam%20for%20marginalized%20students&f=false
Huong, P. L., & Fry, G. W. (2004). Education and economic, political, and social change in Vietnam. Educational Research for Policy and Practice, 3(3), 199-222.
Owens, A. (2018). Income segregation between school districts and inequality in students’ achievement. Sociology of Education, 91(1), 1-27.
