VietNamNet Bridge – More than two millions of students of general schools in Hanoi and HCM City returned to school after nearly three summer-vacation months on August 15. Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc beat the drum to open the new academic year 2011-2012, at the international primary school of Wellspring in Hanoi.

From the early morning, hundreds of pupils of the Wellspring primary school in uniforms, held balloons in their hands to attend the start of the school year ceremony. This is the first school in Hanoi organizing the term beginning ceremony.

On behalf of the Party and the State, Deputy PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc delivered greeting to the school’s teachers and students.

“The Party and the State attach special importance to education in general and develop talent in particular. Improving the people’s intellectual standards, developing human resources and fostering talents are the focus of the Strategy for economic-social development to 2020, and the long-term goal in the human development strategy of Vietnam,” Deputy PM Phuc said.

He said that in the 2011-2012 school year the education sector needs to continue management renovation and improving education quality.

On the same day, nearly one million pupils in HCM City also returned to school. To help first graders to make themselves familiar to the new environment, some primary schools opened two-week start-up courses from mid-July to early August.

In early September, all schools in Vietnam will start the new school year.

The ceremony at the Wellspring School in Hanoi:


PV