VietNamNet Bridge – The overloading can be seen at all nursery schools in the districts of the inner city of Hanoi. The city’s authorities understand that it is necessary to build more schools, but there is no land for schools.

The latest survey on the real situation of nursery school conducted by the city’s education and training department shows that most of the children now have to go to crowded classes. In Ba Dinh district, 100 percent of state owned nursery schools have the numbers of children in every class exceeding the allowed level. In Cau Giay district, the same thing is occurring with 13 out of the 14 state owned schools. In some schools, inspectors could find the classes with 84 children in each.

Overloading getting serious

Prior to that, the Hanoi People’s Council also rang the alarm bell over the overloading of the state owned schools. On average, there are 60-70 children in every class, 2-3 times higher than the allowed level.

Nguyen The Thao, Chair of the Hanoi People’s Committee, admitted at the latest meeting of the city’s people’s council in July that the area for schools has not increased, while the population has increased sharply. It is expected that by 2020, the city would have 7.4 million people, while the figure would rise to 9.5 million by 2030.

With the minimum required area of 8 square meter for every student in the inner city and 15 square meter in the suburb areas, the city needs to build 1014 more nursery schools, according to Thao.

Hanoi does not lack money, but lacks land

In the immediate time, the city’s authorities strive to build some more nursery schools in each district. However, this proves to be a very difficult task. The representatives of the central districts of Dong Da, Hai Ba Trung and Hoan Kiem, who attended the latest conference discussing the building of nursery schools, all affirmed that the districts do not lack money for schools, but they seriously lack land for schools.

Nguyen Duc Hoc, Chair of the Dong Da People’s Committee, said that since 2000, the district has no land more for schools. At present, four wards of the districts still do not have nursery schools, which means that 30 percent of children in the locality cannot go to state owned schools.

The district localities plan to take back the land allocated before to the businesses, which have been using the land ineffectively, to reserve the land fund for schools. However, it takes much time to follow the procedures to take back the land. Instead of giving back the land to the local authorities, the businesses try to build houses on the land plots to sell for profit.

The Medical Plastics Company is relocating its workshop to Bac Ninh province, leaving the land plot with the area of 2700 square meter. However, the company does not intend to give back the land to the city’s authorities, while having drawn up a plan to build a shopping center on it. The city plans to build a nursery school on a land plot on Thai Thinh street, after an import-export company leaves, but the company has announced that it would set up an accommodation project on the land.

Phan The Binh, Chair of the Hai Ba Trung district, also said that it is very difficult to take back land to reserve land fund for schools.

Hanoi Party Committee’s Secretary Pham Quang Nghi has made a tour to some places where local authorities plan to build nursery schools in the districts of Dong Da and Hai Ba Trung. He has instructed the districts to complete the building of nursery schools by 2013.

Dong Da district plans to take back nearly 2000 square meters of land which is now being managed of the Lang Thuong Trade and Service Cooperative. If everything goes smoothly, the construction of the nursery school on the land plot would start in April 2012.

Source: NLD