VietNamNet Bridge – A school has been offered for sale since the investors cannot enroll students, cannot afford the high land leasing fee and the high bank loan interest rates.

The school put on sale is the Truong Son Intermediate School (2-year training) in the central province of Dak Lak. It has bogged down in debts for a long time already and it only can keep operation thanks to the tuitions it collects from students on behalf of another school.

Truong Son is the first school that operates under the “socialization” scheme in Dak Lak province, which means that the school doesn’t receive the financial support from the State.

The school these days has been pervaded by a dreary atmosphere. Nguyen Viet Truong Thanh, Chair of Truong Son School, admitted that the school is now in very bad conditions.

In late December 2012, the school’s board of management began discussing the plan to sell the school to another intermediate school in Buon Ma Thuot City.

“There are only 13 officers still working and about 300 learners at different faculties,” Thanh said.

“We planned to enroll hundreds of students in 2012, but we could find 31 students only,” he added.

Also according to Thanh, the school has become so tragic, because there are too many intermediate schools in Buon Ma Thuot City. As a result, there are not many students for the school to enroll. While the school cannot enroll enough students, it has to bear overly high land leasing fee.

“At first, we were told that we would be exempted from the land leasing fee. However, we were later told to pay land fee from 2008, or just two years after the school became operational,” Thanh complained.

Since Truong Son cannot find enough learners, the receipts from students’ tuitions are not high enough for it to cover expenses and pay bank debts. Commercial banks have been urging the school to pay bank debts over the last two years, which has pushed the school to the deadlock.

However, Thanh has admitted that it’s very difficult to find buyers at this moment. The school which previously intended to buy the school, has changed its mind, deciding to quit the deal, even though the basic procedures for the deal got completed.

“They told us that they would be able to afford the current high land leasing fees, and they decided to give up the game,” Thanh said.

The educator really does not want to sell the school, saying that he feels sad when advertising the sale of the school. Therefore, he hopes that he would be able to revive the school, if he can find someone who comes forward and gives necessary support.

In an effort to cope with the difficulties, Truong Son’s management board decided to temporarily use the students’ tuitions to keep its operation.

In 2007, Truong Son cooperated with the Da Lat University to run training courses. Under the cooperation, Truong Son would provide students and material facilities, while Da Lat would undertake the teaching work.

Under the initial plan, the students of the first training course would take the final exams in December 2011. However, to date, the students still cannot take the exams to obtain degrees, simply because Truong Son, which collected tuitions from them, has not forwarded to Da Lat. As a result, the Da Lat University has refused to grant degrees to the learners.

Tien Phong