To: Mr. Anthony Rowlands - Principal

CC: BIS Management Board

CC: Mrs. Van Dang Bich – Business Director

British International Primary School

HCMC

3rd August 2021

Dear Mr. Anthony,

Dear BIS Management Board,

Dear Mrs. Van Dang Bich – Business Director

I write to you on behalf of a BIS parents group concerned about the impact on our children’s education next school year and related fees due to the ongoing virus restrictions.

We believe the restrictions in HCMC are likely to continue affecting schools until the end of this year. The economic impact of these long term restrictions is severe on most families in Vietnam and should be recognized.

We all sympathize with the unprecedented situation we all find ourselves in which is not of our making and extremely challenging. We are all in this together and need to support each other.

We observe the following:

1. Distance / on-line learning for F1 to F3 children is unsuitable for their needs. This also extends to some of the children in other junior classes too.
2. The majority of parents do not have the first language English skills to assist with on-line learning and homework.
3. The same parents also have busy workloads and responsibilities which does not allow them to dedicate enough quality time to assisting their children with self-study lessons.
4. Everyone is trying to replace the personal interactions and interpersonal skills acquired through their teachers and friends at school which is almost impossible.
5. The school fee rates at BIS –HCMC are in the upper quartile when all Nord Anglia schools are ranked highest to lowest. Distance / on-line learning for approximately 1.5 hours per day, five days a week bears little relation to fees at these levels.

We would like you and the school management board to consider the following:

1. Find an interesting daily interaction between teachers and the very young in F1 to F3.
2. The 5% increase proposed for the new academic year is extremely unsympathetic to the financial impact facing everyone. It also goes against the sentiment in the Country. Most costs are reducing in Vietnam, not increasing.
3. The fee structure should be adjusted for 2021/22 to three semester payments for all parents based on the 2020/21 single payment discounted fee rate.
4. Agree a further discounted rate for the period of time that children have to learn on-line. Likely to be the rest of 2021. Most children are only on-line for approximately 1.5 hours per day; the regular school fee structure just does not work.

We all appreciate the school is dedicated to offering quality all round education to all our children. However, we believe the school management board must recognize the value for money equation is now completely out of sync. Many families have suffered massive financial damage and have had to restructure their businesses / services or have lost their jobs or had imposed salary reductions.

Please consider our proposal in the spirit it has been sent. We should all appreciate the current national sentiment of support & understanding in these unprecedented circumstances.

Kind regards

BIS Parents Group