VietNamNet Bridge – The Hanoi Education and Training Department has promised that Hanoi’s parents would have no more to stay up all night to queue up for the application forms for nursery schools. However, it’s still very difficult for Hanoians to enroll their children in state owned schools.

In the 2013-2014 academic year, the nursery schools in Hanoi plan to receive 73,500 children, while kindergartens would receive 362,000 children.

Under the instruction of the Hanoi education department, in case the number of children enrolling in the schools is higher than their capability, the schools have to prioritize to receive 5-year-old children. If there are more registered children than expected, the schools would have the right to put more students into every class. However, they still have to ensure the minimum area of 1.5 square meters per child.

The headmaster of a nursery school in Ba Dinh district said that the demand is always far higher than the capability. She said the existing schools in the district can only satisfy 40 percent of the demand, while no new school has been built since last year.

Especially, the headmaster now considers enrolling children by organizing lucky draws in July, though parents have expressed their displeasure with the method.

Nguyen Thi Kim Xuyen, Deputy Head of the Cau Giay district’s education sub-department, also said that organizing lucky draws proves to be the only solution for now, because it gives the equal opportunity to every child.

Cao Thu Ha, a state employee in Ba Dinh district, said her son needs to enroll in a state owned school for all she is worth, because a state employee is not rich enough to afford the high tuitions required by private schools.

Not only Ha, other parents also want their children to be sent to state owned schools because of the low tuitions. The city authorities prop up 3.4 million a year to every child going to state owned schools. Especially, the state owned schools have better material facilities and more experienced staff than private run classes.

The limited number of state owned schools has made the seats at state owned schools more and more expensive. Ha Phuong, a housewife in Cau Giay district, has revealed that she has to pay VND10 million for a seat at the Hoa Sen Nursery School in Ba Dinh district for her daughter.

A report of the pre-school education division of the Hanoi Education and Training Department showed that Hanoi has 30,000-35,000 more children every year who need to go to nursery schools, while the number of schools is still limited.

In 2009-2012, Hanoi had 73 new nursery schools and upgraded 145 schools. Hanoi still needs 7 million square meters of land more to build more schools, if referring to the national standards for schools. Of this, 2.3 million square meters would be needed for nursery schools.

Under the school network development plan by 2020, Hanoi would need 17.9 million square meters to build 1,215 schools. Hanoi strives to reduce the number of children in every class by 50 percent.

However, the goals seem to be unfeasible because of the lack of land fund. An official of the education department frankly said that there is no land for school in Hang Dao ward, which is considered the commercial hub, where the land is as expensive as gold.

NLD