Many difficulties in re-planning the school network in Nghe An

Fear of lack of classes

Nguyen Trai Primary School (Vinh City) is one of the schools with a beautiful campus in the system of primary schools in Vinh City. However, for more than 2 years now, due to the lack of classrooms, arranging classes in the school campus has been extremely difficult. The most current problem is the IT room. Since the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, the school has had to requisition 2/3 of the multi-function room to make an IT classroom for students, the remaining 1/3 of the area has been temporarily occupied and become a kitchen used to prepare daily meals for more than 1,000 boarding students of the school.

Because they share a house, studying is extremely difficult for teachers and students. Not to mention, although they have been reminded and consciously ensured study time for students, during the cooking process, the kitchen area still often emits noise and food odors, greatly affecting the students' ability to absorb lessons.

“Teaching IT in a functional room is much more difficult than teaching in a normal classroom, because the classroom is too big and students only sit in one row. Meanwhile, there is a lot of noise.”

Teacher Dinh Ba Chien - Computer Science teacher

Multi-function house that also serves as an IT classroom at Nguyen Trai Primary School (Vinh City). Photo: MH

Not only the IT room, this school year, the Music room, the Art room and some other functional rooms of Nguyen Trai Primary School had to be converted into classrooms for students due to the rapid increase in class size (4 more classes).

Faced with this reality, the People's Committee of Quan Bau Ward has just built 10 more classrooms for the school, preparing for the next school year. However, according to forecasts, next school year, the number of students in the area will increase to 8 classes (the largest increase in the whole city with more than 200 students), so even though the classrooms have been added, the school still lacks 7 classrooms and functional rooms (including 2 cultural rooms, 2 foreign language rooms, 1 IT room, 1 music room and 1 art room).

Teacher Tran Thi Nga - Principal of the school shared: "In recent years, in the ward area, there have been many new apartment buildings built, so the number of students reaching the age of universal education has increased rapidly, especially first graders. If this situation continues, not only next school year but also in the following years, the school will have to continue teaching in rotation and students will have to take extra classes on Saturdays. Therefore, we are also consulting to build a second facility or arrange more classrooms for the coming years."

In addition, the multi-function house is also the kitchen area at Nguyen Trai Primary School (Vinh City). Photo: MH

At Hung Loc Primary School (Vinh City), the shortage of classrooms has been predicted for many years, because this school year the school is short of 5 classrooms. Next school year, the school is expected to continue to add 4 more first grade classes and arranging classrooms for students is very difficult, even though they have to take turns studying.

“Currently, the People’s Committee of Hung Loc Commune and the city are speeding up the construction of the second facility for Hung Loc Primary School with 15 classrooms. If the project is on schedule, next school year, the school will ensure enough classrooms for students and it will also be more convenient for parents in the process of picking up and dropping off.”

Teacher Nguyen Thi Thanh Hien - School Principal

Many high-rise apartment buildings are springing up too quickly, causing many schools to become overloaded. Photo: MH

All over the worldVinh city, next school year, is expected to increase 30 first grade classes with about 4,000 students. This also means, the whole city will be short about 30 classrooms and will certainly put pressure on many schools.

“Currently, schools have implemented the new general education program, so in addition to classrooms, they also need to arrange enough functional rooms to organize subjects such as Information Technology and Foreign Languages ​​for students. Therefore, the city is trying to complete construction projects early before the new school year. At the same time, we will continue to advise on re-planning the school network for the coming years, ensuring enough classrooms for teaching and learning at schools.”

Ms. Hoang Thi Phuong Thao - Head of Vinh City Department of Education and Training

Merge retail locations, arrange boarding schools

Nghe An is a large province with many mountainous districts and difficult transportation. Therefore, in addition to more than 1,530 schools at all levels, the whole province still has more than 1,000 separate schools. This is also the difficulty for schools in implementing the 2018 General Education Program. In which, according to regulations, all third grade students will have to take two compulsory subjects: Information Technology and Foreign Language.

In mountainous districts, the implementationNew general education programis putting pressure on schools, because currently in addition to the lack of teachers, the arrangement of too many classes in too many schools is causing difficulties for schools. In Tuong Duong district, according to statistics from the Department of Education and Training, currently the whole district has 19 primary schools but there are up to 71 satellite schools. Therefore, according to regulations, the minimum number of students in a primary school class is 35 students/class, but in Tuong Duong district, the ratio is only 18.2 students/class.

Class time of students at Muong Long 1 Primary School - Ky Son. Photo: MH

Having too many schools not only makes it difficult for schools to arrange teachers, but also makes it difficult to carry out teaching and learning tasks. For example, at Yen Tinh Primary School, the school currently has 4 schools and the farthest one is about 15 kilometers from the central school. To ensure teaching and learning for students, teachers of subjects such as Fine Arts and Physical Education still have to teach "running" between schools. However, teaching IT and Foreign Languages ​​is difficult because these are special subjects that require specialized machines and classrooms and if invested, they will only be concentrated at the central school.

Mr. Kha Van Lap - Head of the Department of Education and Training of Tuong Duong district added: "According to the roadmap, in the next 2 years we have to merge the satellite schools, first of all transfer students from grades 3 to 5 to the main school. However, the current difficulty is that the facilities at the main schools are not guaranteed, there is a lack of classrooms, functional rooms and a lack of teachers. In fact, the rate of primary schools organizing foreign language and information technology teaching is still low compared to the whole province, of which 12/19 schools teach foreign languages ​​and 4/19 schools teach information technology".

Merging schools will be a solution to improve the quality of education in mountainous areas. Photo: MH

To prepare for the implementation of the new comprehensive general education program, the Department of Education and Training is also conducting a survey of the school network in localities to develop a project.school network planning2021 - 2025 period. In particular, for mountainous districts, in parallel with the merger of separate schools, boarding primary schools for ethnic minorities will be built to create conditions for students from far away to eat and stay at school.

Thereby, to ensure that from the 2022 - 2023 school year, 100% of students in grades 3, 4, and 5 will be able to studyForeign languages, Information Technology. In addition, Nghe An is also planning to merge educational institutions in communes and wards with two or more public educational institutions of the same level but small in scale, or consider merging with other educational institutions of the same level in neighboring communes, or inter-level schools in the same commune into inter-commune or inter-level schools...

Re-planning the school network is necessary to create conditions for students in all areas to fully study according to the requirements of the new general education program. At the same time, it will solve the problem of teacher shortage, improve the quality of teaching and learning in schools and build more spacious and beautiful schools, meeting the criteria of national standard schools.

Mr. Thai Van Thanh - Director of Department of Education and Training