VietNamNet Bridge – State owned nursery schools in big cities, which have been overloaded with local children, are not capable to receive immigrant workers’ children.

There are only factories, not schools for immigrants

A report showed that 270,000 workers are working in the export processing zones (EPZ) and industrial parks (IP) in HCM City.

In 2008, the education department asked the city authorities to force EPZs and IPs to reserve 5,000 hectares of land for nursery schools where their workers can send their children.

The representatives from the education department, EPZs, IPs and the HCM City EPZ and IP Management Board, after a working session came to an agreement that 13 nursery schools would be built to home immigrant workers’ children, and each of school would cover an area of 5,000 square meters.

However, to date, only four nursery schools have been established in three EPZs and 10 IPs, but only one of them has become operational, in Nha Be IP.

It is obvious that not all workers are lucky enough to leave their children at the nursery school. Their children cannot enter state owned schools which have been overloaded with the city’s children. Meanwhile, the high tuitions of prestigious private schools are unaffordable to them.

Therefore, the only choice for immigrant workers is to bring their children to small household run classes in residential quarters.

State owned schools overloaded

When the 2011-2012 school year began, state owned schools complained that they got overloaded and that children should be brought to non-state owned schools to help ease the pressure.

Le Thi Ngoc Giau, Headmaster of Son Ca nursery school in district 9, said the children residing permanently in the locality are always on the top priority, i.e. that the school has to receive the children living in the district before it considers whether to receive children from other districts. Meanwhile, 5-year-old children are on a higher priority level than 3-4 year-old children.

“The number of children who want to go to our school is always higher by 100 than the number we can accept,” Giau said. “Therefore, we cannot receive the children from other localities, or immigrant workers’ children”.

Nguyen Thi Thanh from the district 12’s education sub-department said that the operational 15 state owned schools and 18 private run schools with 600 classrooms in the district cannot be enough for 20,000 children.

Beyond the education department’s capacity

Le Hong Son, Director of the HCM City Education and Training, admitted that the existing state owned schools still cannot satisfy the demand of the city dwellers, and that immigrant workers sustain advantages.

However, Son said though the department can see where the problem is, it cannot settle the problem which is beyond its capacity.

The existing state owned schools are just enough to receive 70 percent of 5-year-old children, while the other 30 percent go to private schools.

“Under the current regulations, EPZs and IPs have to build schools for their workers’ children. However, only one school has become operational so far,” he said.

“The city authorities encourage the enterprises employing hundreds or 1,000 workers to build nursery schools nearby to help workers keep their mind on their work.

Thanh Mai