Just days before the 2022-2023 academic year opened, the Hoang Liet ward People’s Committee in Hoang Mai district in Hanoi organized a special lucky draw session to choose children for the preschool in the ward.

The problem was that the number of 3-year-old children in the locality who wanted to go to the local preschool was double the number of seats at the preschool receptivity. Finally, the local authorities decided to give them chances to go to the preschool facility through a lucky draw.

The lucky draw session was not organized in other wards, but the lack of schools and classrooms was seen in most of the wards in the 12 districts in Hanoi.

In the 2022-2023 academic year, Hoang Mai district had 79,600 children going to public preschools, primary and secondary schools. Under the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) regulations on the maximum number of students in every class, Hoang Mai lacked 36 schools, including 22 preschools, 13 primary and one secondary schools.

Most districts in Hanoi are seriously lacking schools for all education levels, from preschool to high schools, and the shortage is getting more serious.

The Trung Yen Primary School in Cau Giay district is recognized as a national standard school, but there are up to 56 students in every classroom, while the maximum allowed is 35.

At Nguyen Tri Phuong Secondary School in the central district of Ba Dinh, only half of the students could use the schoolyard during physical exercise lessons because of the high number of students.

In Ha Dong district, in the 2022-2023 academic year, the number of students soared in all education levels and there were 49.7 students in each classroom.

Under the current regulations, there must be no more than 35 students in a primary school class, and no more than 45 students in a secondary class. However, 2,000  classes had more than 50 students per classroom and 1,000 classes had more than 55 students per classroom.

It is even more difficult to obtain seats at public high schools. As the number of students has increased too rapidly, and the number of new high schools has not increased proportionally, secondary school students have to attend entrance exams to get seats at public schools. Those who fail the exams have to go to private schools if they want to continue studying to obtain a high education level.

The entrance exam to public high school is believed to be the toughest exam in Vietnam, even harder than university.

As many as 105,000 students registered to attend the entrance exam to public high school in the 2023-2024, while public schools only accepted 72,000 students, or 68.6 percent. 

The competition ratio in Hanoi is the highest in the country – 1 vs 2.5 or higher (varies in different districts). In other provinces, students just got a 1.6 score for each exam subject to enroll in public high school.

Reasons

The lack of schools and overloading of grammar schools are blamed on unreasonable urban planning. Real estate developers and agencies appraising and approving urban development projects just focus on economic benefits, while ignoring social infrastructure, especially general schools.

Experts, scientists and mass media for many decades have been repeatedly warning of the urban planning problem. However, their voices have been ignored. 

The Trung Hoa-Nhan Chinh urban area project was initially designed to have a building density of 34.88 percent, comprising eight 6-7-storey buildings. After many adjustments, the building density increased to over 50 percent, with 16 apartment buildings and a height of 17-34 stories.

Linh Dam was designed as a ‘model urban area’ in Hoang Mai district, covering an area of 200 hectares, including 74 hectares of water reservoirs and a predicted population of 25,000.

In 2001, this area was completed with the building density of 50 percent, while apartment buildings have 41 stories instead of 8 as initially designed. As a result, the population increased to 70,000.

Le Van Luong Road is two kilometers long, but there are up to 40 multi-storey buildings (20-30 stories on average) along it. The detailed planning of the area on the two sides of the route, approved in 2016, was not respected with the designs about flower garden, playing yard and schools broken.

Nguyen Huy Vien