More than 100 highland communes in Nghe An have had their benefits cut, causing difficulties for the education sector.

Many communes, villages and hamlets removed from the list of especially difficult circumstances

Decree 116/2016/ND-CP on support policies for students and general schools in communes and villages with special difficulties is applied to primary and secondary school students, high school students who are ethnic minorities or Kinh (with accompanying regulations) currently studying at ethnic boarding schools or general schools that organize centralized cooking for students who are beneficiaries of policies according to the provisions of this Decree. This Decree takes effect from 2015 - 2020.

Accordingly, each student is supported with 40% of the basic salary for meals each month. In addition, each student is supported with 15 kg of rice each month. For students who have to provide their own accommodation because the school cannot arrange boarding in the school, each month they are supported with 10% of the basic salary. The support level is not to exceed 9 months/school year/student.

Centralized learning will help improve the quality of teaching and learning in mountainous schools. Photo: MH

In Nghe An, the implementation of Decree 116 and previous State policies is the basis for the successful implementation of the model.boarding schoolat all levels of education in mountainous districts. The main beneficiaries are students from theparticularly disadvantaged communes(Area 3) and students from particularly difficult villages and hamlets (communes in Area 2 and Area 1).

Regarding this policy, by the end of 2020, Nghe An had 51 boarding schools for ethnic minorities with more than 18,000 students studying in a favorable environment, of which more than 10,000 students were eating, staying and studying at school. In addition, thousands of primary school students are also enjoying the policy.

Meal time of students at Nam Tip Secondary School for Ethnic Minorities (Ky Son). Photo: MH

The system of boarding schools for ethnic minorities has been positively changing the quality of comprehensive education for students in ethnic minority areas, mobilizing maximum school-age students, reducing the dropout rate, contributing significantly to maintaining and consolidating the results of universal education, improving people's knowledge, and developing human resources in ethnic minority and mountainous areas.

“Gap” in implementing policies and regimes for ethnic minority and mountainous students

Regarding the implementation of policies and regimes for particularly disadvantaged communes, villages and hamlets, on June 4, the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 861/QD-TTg approving the list of communes in regions III, II, I in ethnic minority and mountainous areas for the period 2022 - 2025.

According to this Decision, Nghe An has reduced the number of extremely difficult communes from 252 (in all 3 regions 1, 2, 3) to 131 communes. Particularly, extremely difficult communes have been reduced from 106 communes to 76 communes; the number of extremely difficult villages and hamlets is also expected to be cut by about half, with about 500 villages and hamlets.

Students of Tan Hop Primary and Secondary School for Ethnic Minorities (Tan Ky). Photo: MH

Cutting the allowances for students in especially disadvantaged communes will greatly impact the lives of ethnic minorities, including thousands of students studying at ethnic boarding schools and students receiving support under Decree 116.

Initially, through the preliminary summary of the Department of Education and Training, there are 11 secondary schools for ethnic minorities in the districts of Con Cuong, Quy Hop, Quy Chau, Tan Ky and some schools in the communes of Ky Son and Tuong Duong that may be affected. In addition, there are thousands of other students studying in primary and secondary schools with boarding schools.

At Tan Hop Primary and Secondary School for Ethnic Minorities (Tan Ky), there are currently 259 boarding students, including primary and secondary school students. Implementing this model will not only help the locality facilitate the process of merging two primary and secondary schools in the same commune, but also help the school stabilize classes, limit the number of students dropping out of school and improve the quality of teaching. Therefore, in case students are no longer supported for boarding, the organization of the school's boarding school model will face many difficulties.

Sharing this, teacher Tran Quoc Manh - Principal of Tan Hop Primary and Secondary School for Ethnic Minorities said: Most of the boarding students live far away, have difficult family circumstances, many of them are from poor and near-poor households. Therefore, if the boarding system is cut and the mechanism is changed to socialized, many parents will not have the conditions to contribute and it will affect the school's teaching and learning.

Students of Tan Hop Primary and Secondary School for Ethnic Minorities (Tan Ky). Photo: MH

According to statistics from the Department of Education and Training, in the whole Tan Ky district, there are nearly 1,000 students enjoying the 116 policy with an annual support amount of more than 7 billion VND. This source of funding, if we have to mobilize contributions from parents, is really not easy.

Faced with the risk that the allowance for boarding students will be cut, recently, in a dialogue with leaders of the education sector, many principals also expressed their concern that if there is no budget to pay for boarding students in the second semester of the 2020-2021 school year (calculated from 2021), it will be very difficult.

Or in Tuong Duong district, the district is currently developing a project to build a DTBT Primary School for communes in extremely difficult areas and is expected to be implemented from the 2021-2022 school year and the following years. But currently, according to the latest list just announced, communes such as Tam Quang, Tam Dinh, Tam Thai, and Xa Luong have left Area 3.

Mong students are studying at Mai Son Primary School (Tuong Duong). Photo: Duc Anh

Faced with this reality, Ms. Vo Tuyet Chinh - Deputy Head of the Department of Education and Training said: Building a boarding school model in mountainous communes is different from that in lowland districts because the children not only eat but also stay at school. Therefore, if there are no more support policies and regimes, the implementation will be difficult because the majority of people's lives in mountainous districts are still very difficult.

This issue is currently being considered, reviewed and resolved by the Department of Education and Training. In the immediate future, the Department is collecting statistics and conducting surveys to advise the province and relevant departments and agencies on building a support mechanism for boarding schools in the area. Further, socialization also needs to be discussed so that parents will join hands with schools to implement boarding schools in order to stabilize and improve the quality of teaching and learning in schools.