What is the solution to the overload of preschool education in Vinh city?
(Baonghean) - The summer vacation has just begun, but many parents in Vinh City are already worried about finding preschools for their children in the new school year. This concern is completely justified as each year the opportunity for preschool students to go to school is increasingly narrowed, especially for children who are not in the new enrollment age group...
A class at Hung Dung 1 Kindergarten.
From a single letter
On Sunday, although it was not a regular schedule for receiving citizens, the Readers' Room of Nghe An Newspaper still had a special guest, Mr. Le Viet Chinh and his grandson Le Viet Minh Dung, with permanent residence at No. 254, D2, Block 10, Quang Trung Ward, Vinh City. When meeting us, the nearly 75-year-old grandfather could not hide his fatigue after nearly a month of running around to 4 kindergartens but still could not get his grandchild to attend.
His family's situation was quite special, because the son and his wife had unstable jobs so they had to go to the South right after getting married.
In desperation, he even asked the People's Committee of Quang Trung Ward and the ward's official dispatch to send to 4 schools, but to no avail. Sending us a petition, he confided: "I myself was a traffic soldier who participated in the resistance war several decades ago, contributed to the country, and was awarded the Resistance Medal. Living in the area, I always fully fulfill all the obligations of a citizen. Now, I have a grandson to take care of, I thought that sending him to a local kindergarten would allow him to go to school, but it was really difficult"...
Risk of illiteracy
The case of not being able to get a child into a kindergarten in Vinh City like Le Viet Minh Dung is no longer a rare case today. And if any family has a child just entering kindergarten age, they will understand how difficult it is to get their child into school. Many people are willing to line up from 3 or 4 am to submit applications for their children to study like at Hung Binh Ward Kindergarten 3 years ago, as long as their child has a place to study. Statistics in Vinh City show that the city currently has 42 kindergartens (including 28 public schools) with a scale of 314 classes.
However, this number currently only meets 12,242 children/15,063 children of preschool age (81%). Particularly for nursery age, with 73 classes, it only meets 2,042 children/10,039 children (20%). Due to inadequate facilities, in recent years, every year preschools have been overloaded, especially in "key" schools and central schools. Many schools have had an average number of children/group higher than the regulations for many years. For example, in nursery classes according to State regulations, a class should not exceed 25 children, but in Hung Binh Kindergarten, the average is 35 children/group, Quang Trung 2 Kindergarten is 35 children/group, Ha Huy Tap Kindergarten is 32 children/group.
In preschool classes, the State's standard is no more than 35 children/class, but currently the average in the city is 39 children/class, of which Quang Trung 2 Kindergarten has 48 children/class, Hung Dung 2 Kindergarten has up to 45 children/class, Hoa Hong Kindergarten has 44 children/class... To avoid overload and prioritize universal education for 5-year-olds, in recent years, schools have adopted the policy of only enrolling children of the right age (usually children born from January to June).
However, this enrollment also has its drawbacks, because children who were not born during that period will have to wait until the next school year to fall into the "overage" situation. For example, in this school year, children born from July to December 2009 and children born in 2008 will have difficulty enrolling, because most schools only enroll children born in 2010 and give priority to children born in 2007 (to universalize 5-year-olds). Therefore, in the city, there will be thousands of 3-4 year-old preschool children who will fall into the "illiterate" situation if there are no private schools.
According to Mr. Thai Khac Tan - Head of the Department of Education and Training of Vinh City, the main reason for this prolonged overload is that in recent years the population has increased too rapidly, while the scale of schools and classrooms has not kept up with the planning many years ago. In addition, due to lack of land, some central wards such as Cua Nam, Hong Son, and Le Mao do not have the conditions to expand their scale, leading to pressure on neighboring wards. In wards with new urban areas, the pressure is even greater because there is currently no urban area that has built a kindergarten for children. In addition, due to the psychology of parents preferring to send their children to "key" schools, central schools also put pressure on schools in recruiting students.
Faced with the above situation, the province has recently held many meetings to discuss solutions. However, the solutions to be implemented will have to wait for the coming years. That is, urging to speed up the construction of public kindergartens in wards and communes that do not have public kindergartens such as Hung Phuc and Le Loi; encouraging investors to build more private kindergartens in areas with high enrollment pressure such as Ha Huy Tap, Hung Binh and Nghi Phu; focusing on directing authorities at all levels to continue to increase the rate of mobilizing children of school age by expanding the scale of kindergartens and opening new schools...
In the immediate future, the city is considering a solution of making a recommendation to the Department of Education and Training and the Provincial People's Committee to approve the number of students exceeding the regulations for nursery groups and preschool classes while there are not enough classrooms to meet the learning needs of students as in the 2012-2013 school year.
