Buy firewood, carry it to the forest...
In the remote and difficult Nga My commune of the highland border district of Tuong Duong, to complete the construction of a boarding primary school, people will most likely have to travel over 100km to the lowland district of Do Luong to buy land to level the ground...
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Nhat Lan • July 23, 2024
In the remote and difficult Nga My commune of the highland border district of Tuong Duong, to complete the construction of a boarding primary school, people will most likely have to travel over 100km to the lowland district of Do Luong to buy land to level the ground...
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Information about the project to build Nga My Primary Boarding School for Ethnic Minorities due to lack of land for leveling, likely to be delayed, not completed to welcome the opening day of the new school year 2024 - 2025 came to us before the 21st Session of the 18th Provincial People's Council. Contacting Tuong Duong district to ask about the lack of land for leveling leading to the slow progress of the school construction project, it was confirmed. Over the phone, Head of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment of Tuong Duong district, Mr. Nguyen Phung Hung said: This is a very difficult reality that the district has not found a solution for...
To get a closer look, we went up to Tuong Duong district on July 16. Arriving at Thach Giam town, we were informed that there had been heavy rain in Tuong Duong district in the past few days, the nearest road to Nga My had landslides, so to be safe, we had to go down to Khe Bo town, following National Highway 48C through Yen Thang and Yen Hoa communes with a length of nearly 80 km. Following the instructions, we drove for another 2 hours, when the sun was at its zenith, we arrived at the construction site of Nga My Primary Boarding School, which is Vang Mon village - where the O Du people resettled.
In the field, the school's shape is clear with a 2-story school building with a roof, 12 classrooms being plastered quite completely. But the caretaker here - Mr. Luu Viet Ba said that the progress according to the contract will not be guaranteed. Mr. Ba said: "According to the contract signed with the district, the project will be completed and handed over by October this year. We have tried to speed up the construction progress to strive for early handover, in August so that the children in Nga My can attend the opening ceremony of the new school year. The school building can be completed by the end of July, the boarding accommodation for the children is determined to reuse the houses of the old school next door. But the school not only needs a house, but also a playground, without land to level the ground, it is hopeless...".
Following Mr. Luu Viet Ba around the campus, it was clear that the land needed to be leveled. The school's land was much lower than Highway 48C, and there was a stream running along the front. Therefore, the project had to design an additional 45m long embankment to prevent landslides before being able to fill the soil to create a flat surface for the garden campus. It was observed that the embankment had been built and a part of the campus had been filled with new soil to create a flat surface.
Asked Mr. Luu Viet Ba about this reality, he answered: “After building the embankment, we knew that some households in the area had excess land to build houses, so we paid for the transportation costs for them to fill in. But then the authorities inspected and reminded us that doing so violated the law, requiring us to buy legal land for leveling…”.
After a moment of hesitation, Mr. Ba continued: “When reminded, we have to stop, but without land, the project will stagnate. We have had to redistribute labor and machinery to other projects because we don’t know when we will have the land to fill it. It’s strange and wasteful to dump excess land from households and some projects into the creek, not allowing us to level the school grounds…”
Contacting Nga My commune, the representatives all knew clearly that the project under the National Target Program for Sustainable Poverty Reduction would be delayed due to lack of land for leveling. Vice Chairwoman of the People's Committee of Vi Thi Mui commune said that the Party Committee, the commune government and the parents really wanted to speed up the project so that their children could study in the new school, but it was very difficult to find land for leveling the ground.
Mrs. Mui confided: “The old school was too cramped, lacking everything, not ensuring that the children could study semi-boarding, and that the teachers could do a good job of education. The school and the commune proposed many times before there was a project to build a new school. But the commune did not have the land to fill the land, because the district inspection delegations said it was against the regulations. The district also planned to take the excess land from here to fill the school grounds when implementing the Pung Xieng resettlement project, but there was only a plan, not a land use plan. To implement this plan, it would take a lot of time, even if it was quick, it would have to be until 2025…”.
Nga My Primary Boarding School for Ethnic Minorities includes 1 main school in Pot village, 6 satellite schools with a total of 445 students. Visiting the main school, the facilities are indeed difficult as discussed by Vice Chairwoman of Vi Thi Mui Commune People's Committee. The school consists of 1 2-storey school building, 6 classrooms, 1 row of level 4 houses and 1 parking lot; the campus is only a few hundred square meters wide.2. Because it is summer, there are few people here. Therefore, to get more information, according to the commune officials, you should contact Principal Kha Van Thong who lives in Tam Dinh commune.
We went to teacher Kha Van Thong's house, knowing the content that made the guests come, he said: "Missed the appointment with the new school year...". According to teacher Thong, the school construction project was invested by the district People's Committee, with a total investment of 9.9 billion VND, including 12 classrooms and a system of yard, gate, and fence. The accompanying auxiliary works are not yet available, so the school plans to reuse the house of the Vang Mon satellite school, mobilizing parents to build more temporary houses to take care of the boarding children. But even so, with a new school, the classrooms will be full, the playground will be spacious, and the education and care for boarding students will be better.
“In 2022, Nga My Primary Boarding School started implementing a boarding program at the main school with 35 students; entering the 2023 school year, the number of boarding students increased to more than 100 students out of a total of more than 320 students. With boarding students, the school's teaching staff had a very hard time. The level 4 house originally intended for the Board of Directors and teachers had to be used as classrooms. Only the Principal and Vice Principal had a place to work. The garage also had to be converted into a communal kitchen for the children. As for the resting place for boarding students, due to a lack of rooms, they had to rent an additional house next door. The main school is located close to National Highway 48C, and is on a slope, so traffic safety is very unsafe. Every time school is finished, the Team Leader always has to be accompanied by a teacher, escorting the children across the street…”, Mr. Thong shared.
According to teacher Thong, the school does not know clearly how the land for leveling the ground will be resolved to build the new facility. It is only known that the construction unit has leveled a small area, then had to stop because of some procedural problems. And because there is no land to level the ground to create a campus, the project is behind schedule. Faced with this reality, the school has reported to the commune for discussion, and this is the content that the district is focusing on resolving...
“This school year, Nga My Primary Boarding School has 115 boarding students. We thought the school would have a new facility to help educate and care for the children better, but with this situation, we don’t know how long it will last. We can only wait for the district to find a solution to speed up the progress, so that the project can be completed and put into use, helping to change the education career in the remote commune of Nga My…”, teacher Kha Van Thong added.
Discussing the incident heard in Nga My commune with the Head of the Department of Education and Training of Tuong Duong district - Mr. Thai Luong Thien, it was learned that Tuong Duong district determined that investment in education is an important task, the foundation for socio-economic development. Therefore, in the process of building a plan to implement the National Target Program on Sustainable Poverty Reduction in 2022, attention was paid to reviewing and proposing investment in building school facilities. Among the 10 projects submitted and approved by the Provincial People's Committee, there were 3 projects to invest in building primary boarding schools for ethnic minorities in Yen Thang, Luu Kien and Nga My communes.
Mr. Thai Luong Thien said: “Nga My is a remote commune of Tuong Duong district, from the commune center to the district center is more than 60 km of mountain road. The people's lives are still full of difficulties, the school system has been built for many years, degraded, cramped, lacking functional rooms, playgrounds..., so it is not suitable for implementing the 2018 General Education Program. For these reasons, the Nga My Primary Boarding School Project is given priority for implementation. But currently, there are difficulties in land leveling, leading to slow progress. As far as I know, this is a common difficulty for all projects that need land leveling in the district. And the district is paying attention to solving it. The Department of Education and Training hopes that this problem will be resolved soon...".
According to Vice Chairman of Tuong Duong District People's Committee Nguyen Huu Hien, the district has planned a land mine in Thach Giam town, with the goal of supplying land for projects in the area. However, the district has not been able to attract businesses to invest. The reason is that the geographical distance from Thach Giam town to the communes is too far. Some communes have to travel more than 160 km by road, while others are 40 - 60 km. Meanwhile, the demand for land for infrastructure and civil works in the district is not large, and if businesses invest, they will lose money. Therefore, all projects that need land for land are facing difficulties and the district has not found a solution.
Regarding the Nga My Primary Boarding School Project, to create a campus, about 9,000 m³ of land is needed. Tuong Duong District is a mountainous area, and there is no shortage of land for leveling, but it cannot be used. Therefore, the District People's Committee has assigned relevant departments and offices to investigate and determine that in order to have land for leveling, they will have to go to Do Luong or Yen Thanh districts - localities with land mines to buy and transport. For example, the land mine in Do Luong District, it is reported that 1 m³ of land for leveling to the foot of the project will cost about 303,000 VND/m3. That means, if buying land for leveling from Do Luong district, the school project for Nga My will have to incur more than 2.73 billion VND...
Ask Mr. Nguyen Huu Hien: Going to Do Luong or Yen Thanh to buy land for leveling is like spending money to buy firewood to transport back to the forest. Solving it according to this plan will not only affect the progress but also waste a lot of budget money. Why doesn't the district report to the superiors to find a solution to overcome the difficulties?
Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Tuong Duong district Nguyen Huu Hien replied: "This issue has been discussed by the district many times, at many meetings. Recently, at the 21st Session of the 18th Provincial People's Council, the Chairman of the Provincial Fatherland Front Committee also proposed to urgently consider this issue to remove difficulties for the mountainous districts, not just Tuong Duong. However, here is the problem of the provisions of the law, specifically the Law on Minerals. I think that only when the Law on Minerals is amended to suit the actual situation can this difficulty be removed. Otherwise, it will be very complicated, not only for the Nga My Primary Boarding School Project, but also a bottleneck in the socio-economic development of the mountainous districts...".
At the 21st session of the 18th Provincial People's Council held on July 10, 2024, Chairwoman of the Provincial Fatherland Front Committee Vo Thi Minh Sinh stated: The reality of lack of construction sand, lack of land for leveling, difficulties in managing scattered, scattered, small-scale minerals... is a reality that has been happening for many years in mountainous districts (especially in the implementation of infrastructure projects under the National Target Program on New Rural Construction such as Ky Son, Que Phong, Tuong Duong), and the midlands of the province. This is the "bottleneck" in investment in building infrastructure for socio-economic development and is one of the fundamental causes leading to violations of the law, causing social outrage.
