Just two weeks after the new school year started, many first-graders throughout the country say they want to quit school because of overload.

First-graders at Doan Thi Diem Primary School in Hanoi

V., a 1st-grader at An Dong Primary School in the northern city of Hai Phong, told his parents he would not go to school again because he was stressed out by assignments.

His mother said he had been assigned too many tasks during the day at school, including 5 math puzzles and 5 other exercises in Vietnamese and handwriting.

V. also has to do at least one or two pages of homework every day, his mother lamented. M., another student at the same school, also refuses to go to school after she failed to meet her teacher’s demanding requirements.

She had scored a mere 3.0 out of 10.0 in a handwriting skill exercise for which her teacher gave a disheartening remark.

“She didn’t go to school after the teacher said her handwriting was the ugliest in class,” said H., the mother of the girl.

Many students of a selective class at the school also scored a mere 3 or 4 in math and Vietnamese for the same reason: too many tasks and too challenging exercises.

Teachers at this school are putting even more pressure on their first graders by using a very detailed grading scheme in which the students are graded on a 0.3 or even 0.5 point basis, which is similar to the grading system of the national university entrance exam.

They also issue weekly report cards on the average grade their students have scored during the week, an ordeal for many students who have had poor performances.

One of the teachers explained the school was employing a new teaching methodology so its students have to work harder.

C., a mother from Hoc Mon District in Ho Chi Minh City, said one of her three children cried and pleaded with her to stop sending him to school after the first two weeks when he had too many tasks and exercises.

She said her child insisted on taking another class if she wanted him to go back to school.

He’s faced a lot of pressure because he wasn’t sent to a kindergarten where students are often taught first-grade curricula, the mother said.