Ho Chi Minh City (AsiaNews) – Moral decay is taking hold in Vietnam, in its families, schools and more broadly in society. Parents complain that their children learn to lie in schools and use doubletalk. In public places like bus stops children hear lies and foul language. Local officials suspect their own people and staff. Journalists lie to readers and to their own conscience.
Some studies indicate that bad habits learnt in Ho Chi Minh City schools have many reasons, but one of the main ones is that adults do not provide good examples to children, lying and swearing instead in front of them.
Another motive lies in the results claimed by schools. The latter often provide false results to higher ups. Similarly, newspapers print lies. Their articles lack analytical depth or treat social phenomena superficially. When you read them you realise that some journalists write according to their biases, and hurriedly, about social problems.
A journalist with Tuoitre wrote on 2 February that studying society over a long period of time shows how schools and families teach young people the right path, but adults, even those who teach, behave differently and give the wrong example.
Some journalists lie for gain; others have false degrees that they bought or which they got because they knew someone in the educational system. Journalists use communication media to do both right and the wrong thing. Some only think about making money and have neither conscience nor professional skills.”
“I am really sad when I hear my teachers lie or use foul language among themselves,” a sociology student at Ho Chi Minh City’s Open University told AsiaNews. “They talk about those who are absent as that chap or that woman ‘thang nay, con kia’, and have no respect for one another. How can they teach what is good, beautiful and just in life? Perhaps the social structure has generated liars; and they always discriminate against religions.”
“The school system should be concerned about its teachers,” said N V Ng, vice director of an educational department.