Nghe An: 'Strange' school with only 4 classrooms

(Baonghean.vn) - That is Hong Long Secondary School, a secondary school in Nam Dan district. Currently, the whole school has 4 grades but each grade has only 1 class, the whole school has only about 140 students.

We went to school on Friday - which is also the main school day. However, all students in the school had a day off because teachers of Civics, English, Literature, and Geography had to go to training. Sharing with us about this, teacher Le Van Luan - the school's principal said: It is unavoidable that students are absent from school and we are forced to arrange for students to make up for the weekend. But this is unavoidable because if students go to school, there will not be enough teachers to teach.

Hong Long Secondary School is located in Hong Long Commune - Nam Dan District. After more than 40 years of establishment and operation, the 2017-2018 school year was the year when the number of students at the school was at its lowest with 140 students in 4 classes. That also means that currently, each grade of the school has only 1 class and on average each class has only 36-37 students.

Hong Long Secondary School - Nam Dan. Photo: MH

Although the school is very small, its organizational structure is still equivalent to that of a normal school with 16 staff members. In addition to the principal, vice principal and 3 service staff (including an accountant and office staff, a library equipment staff and a cashier and equipment staff), the school also has 11 subject teachers and youth union members. Due to the small number of classes, but the number of teachers is more than the regulations, so most of the school's teachers have to take on additional tasks to ensure that each person has at least 19 periods/week.

Learning about the school's operations, the school's leaders said: Previously, at its peak, the school had up to 20 classes. However, in recent years, due to the decrease in population, the number of classes has gradually decreased and in the past 3 years, it has decreased from 6 classes to 4 classes and is expected to maintain this number of classes until the 2019-2020 school year; and in the following years, it may increase slightly.

The school currently has 12 classrooms, but only 4 are used for grades 6, 7, 8, and 9. Photo: MH

Faced with this situation, the Department of Education and Training of Nam Dan district has also discussed the plan to merge Hong Long Secondary School into Tan Dan Secondary School or Xuan Lam Secondary School. However, despite many discussions, the people still do not agree. Maintaining a school with too few classes will cause many difficulties for the school in arranging teaching hours, nurturing excellent students and organizing activities. In addition, it leads to a waste of human resources, facilities and equipment. The school leaders also hope that the school will soon be merged with another school in the area so that teaching and learning will be more effective and the school will have the conditions to build a standard school and invest in facilities.

With 4 classes per school, up to now, this can be considered the public school with the fewest classes in Nghe An. Previously, due to the reduction in the size of schools, Nam Dan district had also merged many schools, including some areas merging up to 3 schools such as Hung - Thai - Nghia Secondary School, Phuc Cuong Secondary School, Anh Xuan Secondary School./.

My Ha