VietNamNet Bridge – Ha Noi's education sector is busy building more kindergartens to meet the local people's demand but land is scarce and teachers in short supply.

Ha Noi's education sector is busy building more kindergartens to meet the local people's demand but land is scarce and teachers in short supply.

Two years ago, the chairman of the municipal People's Committee, Nguyen The Thao, asked relevant agencies to buy up land to build more kindergartens and speed up construction to improve the situation by 2015.

Typically, the Thanh Nhan Kindergarten in Hai Ba Trung District opened last October after nearly 200 days of being under construction. The school, totalling 800sq.m, can accommodate 150 children.

Three other kindergartens are also being built and one of them will be completed this month; the other two by the middle of this year.

Dong Da District is building two kindergartens in Lang Thuong and Trung Liet wards. These should open next month.

Pham Thanh Binh, a kindergarten expert with the Dong Da Department of Education and Training, said that so far two wards in the district, Nga Tu So and Phuong Mai, do not have kindergartens.

"Reasons for the delay is the land shortage," she said, although Tay Son and Truong Chinh streets have been chosen as locations.

Meanwhile, the residents' children are studying in neighbouring wards.

The district has also been hit by the teacher shortage, said Binh.

"It is regulated that kindergarten teachers receive the low salary of people graduating from vocational schools although they are university graduates, so they choose private kindergartens instead of state ones," she said.

Each teacher's salary is no more than VND2 million (US$95) a month.

Many enterprises, when asked to give up sites for kindergartens, say they lack land for manufacturing and trading.

Thao said the city will take back under-used sites and compensate the enterprises.

Ha Noi now has more than 830 state kindergartens and over 12,000 private ones, attracting a total of 361,000 kids, 32,000 more than last year, according to the municipal Department of Education and Training.

However, classrooms in state kindergartens are overcrowded; each class has up to 60-70 children.

Source: VNS