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http://english.vietnamnet.vn/education/201003/HCM-City-foreign-language-schools-under-the-microscope-900123/

VietNamNet Bridge - The HCM City Education and Training Department has threatened to discipline the city�s foreign language centers that display false advertisements on their signboards.

Nguyen Tien Dat, the department�s Deputy Director, explained there is a boom in foreign language centers in HCM City, which now has the highest number of centers in the country.

Dat observed that the foreign language centres have many law violations, especially on their signboards and advertisements. Most of the centres now have inaccurate names on their signboards, using the word �school� instead of �center.�

He pointed out that the Education Law does not directly address the concept of foreign language schools that operate after normal working hours, only mentioning �foreign language centers.� The centers deliberately upgrade themselves by adding �school� to their names.

Many signboards have their names listed in Vietnamese language in small letters at the tops of signboards, and then their English names in much bigger letters displayed prominently in the middle. Sometimes, the signboards do not even have their names identified in Vietnamese.

Dat revealed that the education department will force down all signboards that violate current regulations.

He went on to say that many foreign language centers use foreign works who do not have work permits, while others join forces with other establishments to train students at the junior college level (3-year training), but they lack permission to do so in their licenses.

I think that it would be enough for HCM City to have some 600-700 teaching establishments operating outside normal working hours,� Dat speculated.

According to HCM City Education and Training, there are now 539, most of which are foreign language centers. While the number of information and science centers have decreased, foreign language centers� numbers have expanded (there are 10 more in the 2009-2010 school year in comparison with 2008-2009).

The foreign language centers have attracted 722,000 students out of one million total students, an increase of 62,000 compared to the previous school year.

Meanwhile, the number of students studying information and other science subjects has lessened by 2,000 and 30,000 respectively. Similarly, the number of foreign language teachers increased by 1,710 as science instructors� numbers has declined.