In the absence of life skill training in schools, urban parents are sending their children to unregulated psychological improvement centres, which some experts say aren\'t worth the money.

Students learn about road safety at southern Dong Nai Province\'s Quang Bien Primary School, one of the few places in the province offering accredited life skill classes. Parents have been warned that sending their children to unregulated psychological improvement centres offering life skills classes could be a waste of money. – VNA/VNS Photo The Anh

Professor Phan Trong Ngo, Director of Institute of Educational Research, said there were no standards governing such organisations.

"They are do-it-yourself centres with their own curriculums and coaching staff," he says.

Ho Chi Minh City College of Education Psychology Professor Nguyen Huu Long warns, however, that in many cases the courses aren\'t worth the money.

He advises parents and students to assess if there was any positive change in a student\'s behaviour by the end of a course before registering for another one.

Doctor Le Minh Cong, Deputy Head of National Mental Health Hospital\'s Clinical Psychology Department, said parents sent children to life skills classes to make them more mature to cope with life\'s problems.

"However, these course are no magic bullet, where you can sign up for a short period of time and students suddenly become mature and well-prepared," Cong said.

"Dignity and life values are much more important, yet they can only be instilled by a continuum of care from family and educational settings."

Long says the most obvious reason that Vietnamese students don\'t have adequate life skills is their daily lives evolve around too heavy an academic curriculum in the absence of extracurricular social and sporting activities.

In his research on the issue of life skills among secondary students in Ho Chi Minh City, Long found that one third of surveyed students answered that they lacked life skills due to the abundance of online games on offer.

As many as 28 percent of them said they found it difficult to talk with adults.

Long recommended a set of 10 essential life skills that Vietnamese young student should acquire, including sharing and co-operation, teamwork and public speaking skills.

Professor Ngo said there was a need for a government agency to establish a thoroughly researched life skills training programme that fitted different periods of development from early childhood to late adolescence.

Ngu Duy Anh, Head of the Ministry of Education and Training\'s Students Affairs Department, said the compilation of a "life skills" syllabus had been completed and the ministry already had plans to integrate it into the curriculum.

However, a teacher from the private Doan Thi Diem Primary School in Hanoi, said that to date the school still had to rely on its own syllabus to teach life skills to its students once a week.