Hanoi’s Vice Mayor Vu Thu Ha said the city has the highest number of students in the country. In the 2022-2023 academic year, the city had 2,870 preschools, general schools and continuing education schools with 2.2 million students.

There are many forms of schools in Hanoi, including schools with various education levels, schools for the gifted, and national key schools with a relatively large classes.

However, under Decree 120, there must not be more than two deputy managers in every school, thus creating difficulties for the management of large schools.

Ha proposed that the government amend the decree based on the real situation.

Also according to Ha, Hanoi has 50,000-60,000 more students every year, which means 30-40 more schools are needed. However, it is an impossible mission in inner districts as the land bank is running out.

This explains why many schools cannot satisfy the average area of school per student in order to be recognized as national standard schools. Hanoi has proposed reconsidering this requirement. The criterion to be considered should be the usable area per student instead of the land area.

For inner districts, Hanoi wants to build schools with more stories to increase the total usable area. It also seeks permission to build basements in schools in the inner city to exploit the limited land bank.

The proposal has faced strong opposition from the public. Nguyen Viet Cuong, a VietNamNet reader, said schools should have no more than three stories to ensure safety for students. 

Thai Binh, another reader, said that Hanoi can solve the problem of land shortage by relocating factories to the suburbs to make room for preschools and grammar schools.

Prior to that, at a conference discussing tasks in the 2023-2024 academic year, Ha said regular expenses of the educational sector are no less than 20 percent. The Hanoi Finance Department reported that the regular expenses in the sector in reality accounts for 32.8 percent of the city’s total regular expenses. The figure shows that the city is paying high attention to the educational sector.

Hanoi is also considering building different school models based on demand, including the building of high-quality schools. A resolution on building advanced schools for different education levels has been released. The model is being piloted in seven localities with total expenses of VND2.5 trillion.

Thanh Hung