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Lured by math centers’ sales pitches to turn their children into prodigies, parents in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are scrambling to enroll their kids in mental math courses in the cities.

Course providers say their classes will help children develop math skills as well as intellect with advanced teaching methods ‘imported’ from the U.S., Japan, and Singapore.

A teacher at a foreign-owned math center claims that the lessons are prepared to sow a passion for math in students, regardless of their ability, and then expand their arithmetic skills by providing them with tricks and mathematical patterns to quickly solve a particular problem.

Nam, a second-grader in the southern city’s Phu Nhuan District, goes to such classes run by Kumon, a South Korean native, every evening after school as his parents, like many others who cannot resist such tempting advertising, have fallen for the mental math trend.

“I feel obliged to send him there since most of my colleagues are doing so,” the mother said. “You have to spend money if you want your kids to succeed in their studies.”

Another parent in District 1 said that she placed her child in a mental math course after seeing so many of his peers entering similar courses at private centers across the city.

“How on earth would I let my child stay home while his friends are flocking to these classes?” she explained.

Up north, such courses are also popular with parents who want to make a genius out of their little kids.

Hang, the mother of a second-grader, said her kid has been getting increasingly familiar with math problems that help improve his intelligence at a newly-founded learning center.

“The math problems are properly divided into different levels and categories to cater to separate groups of students,” she said.

Does it work?

Many parents are impressed by how their children can resolve a math problem so quickly after studying at these centers for a certain time.

“My second-grader can do fourth-grade puzzles now, and he does it far quicker than those who are not taking these mental math courses,” Thanh Le, in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1, said.

Experts, however, are not so sure about that fast improvement.

Dr Nguyen Cam, a math lecturer at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Education, said that local education officials should step in since the effectiveness of the courses is still unproven in Vietnam.

It is baseless to say that brain development can be achieved through learning in these courses, even though a person’s intelligence quotient may be improved to some extent, asserted Tran Phuong, who is with a union of science and technology associations.