Children play at Selfwing Garden. It's the first outdoor physical education and agricultural science skills space for kids in Da Nang. — Photo courtesy of Selfwing Viet Nam

The garden, which covers 1,400sq.m in the Hoa Xuan Eco-Urban Area with total investment of VND20 billion (US$870,000), will offer a farming skills centre and agricultural science workshop, a Japanese model house for future business start-up training and a café and fun zone.

Hirai Yukiko, CEO of Selfwing Viet Nam Company, said the garden would act as a rendezvous point for parents to chat about the difficulties they faced educating their kids.

She said the garden was part of Selfwing Viet Nam’s education chain with funding from Japan, where kids could learn about organic farming, basic skills and agricultural science.

A farming area at the Selfwing Garden in Cam Le District, Da Nang. — VNS Photo Cong Thanh

The business opened its first kindergarten in the city centre last year for kids from 18-months to six years old with a joint curriculum from Vietnam and Japan.

Selfwing Viet Nam, in co-operation with Leave a Nest, an education organisation from Japan, has also launched a pilot project on nature research for students at junior secondary schools in Da Nang.

A model Japanese house featuring a science workshop and start-up area for kids. —Photo courtesy of Selfwing Viet Nam

A report from the city’s education and training department showed that Da Nang has 205 kindergartens, of which 136 are private schools, but only three-year-olds are accepted due to limited nursery services for new-born babies.

Japanese is taught at 12 primary schools and seven junior secondary schools in Lien Chieu District following the city’s foreign language teaching programme for 2012-20.

Da Nang has added Japanese, Korean and German as second foreign languages after English and French in some secondary schools.

VNS