VietNamNet Bridge – Pre-school education has revived after a period of being left abandoned.

Vietnam once paid inappropriate attention to pre-school education, which then resulted in the serious lack of nursery schools for children. However, the problem has been fixed: the plan on education universalization for 5-year-old children was kicked off two years ago, which then triggered the strong revival in 2012.

Minister of Education and Training recently admitted before the National Assembly that for a long period, pre-school education received less attention than general education.

This has resulted in big bad consequences. In 2007-2010, Vietnam seriously lacked nursery schools and nursery school teachers. There were not enough schools for children, especially in big urban areas, even though the percentage of children going to school was lower.

An official of the Hanoi Education and Training Department said at a workshop on pre-school education last year that Hanoi created 20,000 more seats every year for children, but this still could not satisfy the demand.

Since Hanoi seriously lacked nursery schools, it had to arrange the classes with 60 children, while the Ministry of Education and Training said there must not be more than 35 students in every class.

After the plan on education universalization for 5-year-old children was kicked off, pre-school education has developed rapidly, but it still cannot satisfy the demand.

About 1300 semi-state owned schools have turned into state owned schools, which means that the state pays money to run the schools. Meanwhile, hundreds of schools more have been built. However, the country still lacks tens of thousands of classrooms.

A report of the education ministry showed that 84.4 percent of pre-school age children and 22.7 percent of less-than-36-month children can go to school.

The figures show that only a small percentage of children can go to nursery schools. However, the lucky children cannot receive standard education quality.

Of the 149,000 nursery classrooms nationwide, 50 percent can meet the standards in material facilities, while the others are made of bamboo or in very poor conditions.

Once the classrooms are not enough for children, toys and school yards prove to be the “luxurious things” for children.

Vietnam not only lacks nursery schools, but also nursery school teachers as well.

A report showed that less than 60 percent of nursery school teachers now receive salaries from the state. Since semi-state owned schools have turned into state owned schools, a lot of teachers have luckily become the regular members of the personnel and received salaries from the state budget.

Over the last three years, 31,000 teachers have been recruited for nursery schools. According to Nguyen Thi Minh, Deputy Minister of Finance, the State pays 3 trillion dong more a year to pay to nursery school teachers.

However, in many localities, the limited local budgets do not allow to recruit more teachers. According to Nguyen Vinh Hien, Deputy Minister of Education and Training, a high percentage of nursery school teachers now work under short term labor contracts.

Since the teachers do not receive salaries from the state, and their incomes depend on the local budgets and local schools, they cannot get periodic promotions as stipulate din the Labor Code. Meanwhile, the fixed incomes are very low--between one and 2.5 million dong a month. And they always have to work more hours than stipulated in the labor code.

Tien Phong