VietNamNet Bridge – The People’s Committee of HCM City has approved a plan from now to 2020 to offer extended kindergarten hours for children of workers at industrial parks (IPs) and export processing zones (EPZs) who work overtime.

Illustrative image -- File photo

The service will help reduce parents’ costs of sending children to privately owned kindergartens during their overtime hours, according to the committee.

For the upcoming academic year, kindergartens at IPs and EPZs in Binh Tan and Thu Duc districts will offer the overtime service in a pilot programme.

Nguyen Thi Thuy Nga, deputy head of Thu Duc District’s educational division, told local newspapers that teachers’ working hours would be divided into two shifts, from 6am-2pm and 2pm-9 pm, to better accommodate workers’ schedules.

As part of the pilot programme, two new kindergartens for children aged 3-5 will also be set up at the Linh Trung 1 and 2 Export Processing Zone in wards Linh Xuan and Linh Trung. The teachers will also work on Saturdays as well as during overtime hours of the parents.

In addition, kindergartens at the Tan Thuan Export Processing Zone in District 7 and Tay Bac Industrial Parks in Cu Chi District will offer the overtime service as well in the 2017-2018 year.

In the 2019-2020 term, other districts will also begin to provide services during overtime working hours.

The Department of Finance has asked the People’s Committee to subsidise all fees for kindergarten services held during workers’ overtime hours.

If there is not enough money, the committee could provide 50 per cent of the fee and the rest could be paid by parents and sponsored by companies, the department said.

According to the committee’s figures, the city has 73 kindergartens with a total of 18,741 kids at industrial parks and export processing zones.

As many as 7,121 of them are children of workers at IPs and EPZs.

Many workers at IPs and EPZs prefer not to send their children to public or private kindergartens because the schools’ working hours do not match their schedules. Many of them work overtime.

Many privately owned kindergartens are set up around IPs and EPZs provide an alternative to illegal nurseries owned by individuals.

Private kindergartens in Tan Phu, Binh Tan and Thu Duc districts charge low prices, but the fees are higher than those at public kindergartens.

City authorities are considering issuing policies that would require private kindergartens to charge lower fees during workers’ overtime hours.

VNS