VietNamNet Bridge – It is hard to imagine that there are such tiny schools in inner Ho Chi Minh City.

Ket Doan Primary School, a school situated in District 1, is one of them. The school includes two small buildings. Although the first one is seemingly spacious, in fact, its twelve classrooms base on an unsteady wooden story. The second one looks just like a matchbox with two floors and no gate, no playground.

Huynh Thi Hong Ha, Headmistress of Ket Doan, said that the wooden story in the school’s first building is 50 years old already; the wood has started to be rotten. Just two kids walking will make the corridor shake slightly.
It takes at least one year to build a new school, and arranging temporary classrooms for twelve classes during such a long time is not easy at all. “In that case, we will have to make many students study only one session a day instead of two in order to make rooms for all students. Under the current city’s policy, all students need to follow the day boarding scheme, so this plan seems to be impossible”, said Ha. Many headmasters and headmistresses of the school tried to solve the problem but all of them failed.
Many parents have complained to the school board because no one wants their children to study in such a poor condition. The school has to arrange students to take turns studying on the run-down story so that every student is treated fairly.

The labyrinth school

The condition of Au Co Primary school is not better than Ket Doan’s. The school, which was built in 1964, has an unusual structure. All sides are sealed, the classrooms are dark and the staircases are zigzag like a labyrinth. The problem is even worse in rainy days, when the school is flooded with rainwater. Au Co has 26 classrooms but only 13 of them can be used since the other ones are too run-down and dangerous.

“Most students in our school are from poor families. A new spacious school is necessary for their study, which will give them a brighter future”, said Phu Thi Hong Duc, a teacher who has been teaching here for more than 20 years. Because of the school’s poor material facilities, the number of students has decreased from 1000 to 400 students in only several years.

No break times

Huynh Man Dat Primary School was built in 1975 and it looks just like an old tenement. The classrooms are very dark and small, about 20 meters square; the largest one is 40 meters square and usually used for all school activities. Whenever the electricity is cut, the school board has to let students go home because the classrooms are too hot and stuffy for the students to continue studying. The school has seven floors but the staircases are old and narrow, which is very dangerous. Students dare not go out to play in break times; they just stay in their classrooms or sit in corridors.

Vo Ngoc Thu, head of Department of Education and Training of District 5, where Huynh Man Dat Primary School is situated, said that of all schools in the district Huynh Man Dat has the worst condition. The authorities have planned to build a new building for the school, but due to some difficulties, it has not been started yet.

Source: NLD