The reality of waiting and relying on the budget in building standard schools in Thanh Chuong

On the afternoon of November 4, the Culture - Social Committee of the Provincial People's Council had a meeting with the People's Committee of Thanh Chuong district according to the program to supervise the construction of national standard schools in the province. Photo: Mai Hoa

Lack of functional departments

In the morning, the delegation directly surveyed 4 schools, including: Thanh Chuong 1 High School, Thanh Chuong 3 High School, Ton Quang Phiet Secondary School, and Dung Town Kindergarten.

The survey shows that the work of building national standard schools has been directed by the Party Committee and authorities from the district to the grassroots level since early on. The evidence is that all four of these schools met national standards in the period 2001 - 2004.

However, because the schools were recognized as meeting standards more than 15 years ago, the basic facilities built at that time have now degraded.

Vice Chairman of Thanh Chuong District People's Committee Nguyen Van Chien said that the most difficult criteria at present is the physical facilities, with difficult economic conditions and budget collection in the area, while the need to invest in building new standard schools and consolidating and maintaining standards in schools recognized in the previous stage is very large. Photo: Mai Hoa

Specifically, Thanh Chuong 1 High School currently lacks multi-functional rooms and the administrative area is not adequate; or Thanh Chuong 3 High School, although it has enough functional rooms, the area is cramped and the equipment is outdated.

Similarly, at Ton Quang Phiet Secondary School, the Chemistry - Biology practice room only meets 60% of the requirements; the practice room is using a traditional room; the IT and foreign language rooms do not have enough space, the foreign language room equipment cannot be used; there is a lack of art education rooms, permanent rooms, trade unions, and consulting rooms.

For Dung Town Kindergarten, in addition to the classrooms attached to the children's toilets that were built a long time ago and are now degraded, the experience area and equipment for children to play and do outdoor activities are not guaranteed; some functional rooms are missing; the ratio of teachers is not arranged according to the prescribed standards...

Currently, the above schools have not been assessed for re-recognition according to regulations and if re-assessed, they will certainly not meet standards.

Although Ton Quang Phiet Secondary School is a key high-quality school in the district, its facilities have not received adequate investment. Photo: Mai Hoa

The rate of standard schools is only 51.56%

In the afternoon, working with the People's Committee of Thanh Chuong district, the delegation acknowledged the results of building national standard schools in the district with 90/128 schools recognized, reaching 70.03%.

The district has also paid attention to assessing and re-recognizing schools that meet the standards after a period of 5 years as prescribed with a total of 36 schools at 3 levels: preschool, primary and secondary.

In addition, the issue that the monitoring team is concerned about is that in the district, there are currently 24/90 kindergartens, junior high schools, and high schools that have exceeded the standard school recognition period and have not been re-evaluated and recognized, which means that they no longer have the title of standard school. If we exclude the 24 schools that have not been re-evaluated and recognized, the number of schools that actually meet national standards in Thanh Chuong is only 66 schools, reaching 51.56%.

In addition, there are 5 schools that are due for assessment but have not yet been included in the plan for re-assessment and recognition. So the responsibility of the Department of Education and Training in this work needs to be clarified.

The working group conducted a survey at Dung Town Kindergarten. Photo: Mai Hoa

Reporting to the monitoring delegation on the work of building standard schools, Acting Head of the Department of Education and Training of Thanh Chuong district Nguyen Thi Hang said that recently, the unit has proactively directed schools that are overdue for recognition as standard schools to self-inspect and evaluate.

Through inspection, 4 kindergartens and 5 secondary schools self-assessed that they did not meet the standards. In addition, the District Education Department directed the schools to consult with local Party committees and authorities to include them in the investment plan to complete the standards.

Reality shows that there are still some localities that are not resolute, still waiting and relying on the state budget and national target programs to build standard schools; not following the roadmap, not having specific solutions to implement the plan to build standard schools.

Along with paying attention to planning for investment in building facilities and teaching and learning equipment for schools that have expired their recognition and are in the process of building standards, the Provincial People's Council's monitoring delegation also requested the district to pay attention to criteria for improving the quality of management staff and teachers; improving the quality of mass education, including the quality of education in resettlement areas as well as increasing the organization of experiential activities, creating life skills and a clean and safe pedagogical environment for students...