Building a standard school: How to do it in Do Luong

(Baonghean) - One of the two important targets in the cultural and social fields set forth by the Resolution of the Do Luong District Party Congress is to strive for 72% - 75% of the district's schools to meet national standards by 2015. Thanks to the focused leadership and direction of Party committees and authorities at all levels, the participation of the entire political system and the people, up to this point, the district has achieved 64% of its schools recognized as meeting national standards.

Arriving at Dong Son Kindergarten (Dong Son commune), we were really surprised, because before our eyes was a school located on an area of ​​5,500m2, in a beautiful campus with trees, flower gardens, and clean vegetable gardens that were neatly planned and clean. The facilities were relatively complete, with 12 closed classrooms, separate dining rooms for each class group, playrooms, and sports facilities for children... Teacher Nguyen Thi Bay - Principal of the school, said: "Building a national standard school has created opportunities for rural children to enjoy a good educational environment, at the same time, motivating the school's staff, teachers, and employees to be more attached and responsible to the school and class". Before building the standard school (in 2011), the school's facilities were received from the old primary school, which was both degraded and unsuitable for preschool education. The school's Party Committee has advised the Party Committee, the Education Council, and the Steering Committee for the construction of the National Standard School in Dong Son Commune on the plan to build a standard school. In 3 years (2012 - 2014), the district and commune budgets and social mobilization of over 3 billion VND have been invested in upgrading facilities and purchasing equipment for the school. The Steering Committee for the construction of the standard school has mobilized mass organizations and military units of Warehouse K41 - Military Region IV to contribute to the renovation of the campus... On the school's side, it focuses on improving the quality of staff and teachers; taking care of innovating methods, designing teaching content suitable for children. Thanks to that, the construction of the standard school at Dong Son Kindergarten has been completed 1 year ahead of schedule and was just held on September 4, 2014.

Drawing room of Dong Son Kindergarten (Do Luong).

Secretary of Dong Son Commune Party Committee Truong Dinh Dong shared: "Although there are still difficulties, with the viewpoint of prioritizing investment in education, in the 2010 - 2015 term, the Commune Party Committee has set the target of building a primary school that meets national standards level II and a kindergarten that meets standard level I". Therefore, the commune has allocated resources, mainly revenue from land use rights to invest in school construction, in which specific phases, in the first year of the term (2010), focused on investing more than 4 billion VND to build a new primary school at a new location and continue to supplement and complete items to be recognized as a national standard school level II by the end of 2011. In 2012, the commune focused on investing funds to renovate and upgrade the old primary school to a standard kindergarten.

My Son is one of the most difficult communes in Do Luong district; the poverty rate of the commune is at 12.7%, (the whole district has only 9.5% poor households), but out of 3 schools, the commune has 2 standard schools, including a primary school and a secondary school. Before the Resolution of the 19th District Party Congress set the target of building standard schools, My Son had a campaign method in the style of poor children, each year each person contributed 20,000 VND (in 2005 and 2006) and then increased to 30,000 VND (in 2008, 2009, 2010) to reserve resources for school construction. Clearly identifying the material facilities standard as the most difficult to achieve due to the need for many resources, the Party Committee of the commune has focused on doing a good job of ideological work, creating high consensus within the Party Committee to prioritize local budget sources, mobilize socialized resources and the People's Council of the commune issued a resolution to mobilize people's contributions, an average of 50,000 VND/person/year to build a national standard school. The total budget mobilized from concentrated sources for building standard schools in the period of 2011 - 2014 is more than 11 billion VND. Secretary of the Party Committee of the commune Nguyen Trung Thanh shared: In order to have comprehensive leadership of the Party Committee in building standard schools, comrades in the Standing Committee and the Executive Committee of the Party Committee of the commune are assigned to be in charge of each task based on the contents of the 5 national standards. Every year, at the end of the school year, the Commune Party Committee has a working program with schools to both evaluate the school year's tasks and review and improve work requirements to implement the criteria in each school. The Commune Party Committee also takes the lead in diplomacy with organizations, units, and businesses, such as seeking support and assistance from local units and businesses to build schools...

Comrade Truong Hong Phuc - Secretary of Do Luong District Party Committee said: Along with the plan and determining a specific roadmap, Do Luong has issued mechanisms and policies to support the construction of standard schools from 250 to 500 million VND/school, depending on favorable and difficult commune conditions, creating a real stimulus for schools and localities. At the same time, clearly defining the responsibility of each locality in taking care of investment in facilities, socialization work, thereby concretizing into policies through resolutions of the People's Councils of communes and towns. The Party Committee also pays great attention to ideological work, propaganda work among cadres, party members and people to understand the purpose and meaning of building standard schools is to improve the quality of comprehensive education for students. From there, join hands with the school in mobilizing resources to invest in facilities, improving the quality of education. Regarding the quality of staff, quality of education and movements in schools, the Department of Education and Training is responsible for the schools. In Do Luong, 100% of schools have party cells, which are the core of comprehensive leadership of the school's political tasks, associating the responsibility of advising the school party cells to local Party committees and authorities on building national standard schools... Therefore, although the starting point for school facilities in Do Luong is low (at the beginning of the term, many schools were still studying in borrowed rooms or temporary rooms), in the 4 years of building standard schools, since the beginning of the term, there have been 16 more schools that have met the standards.

Up to now, Do Luong district has 60/94 schools meeting national standards, equal to 64% of the total number of schools in the district, ranking 6th in the province. Notably, 14 of them have met national standards level 2. The teaching staff at all levels have met the standards. The quality of excellent teachers has also increased, of which, 55 teachers have been excellent teachers in the province for 2 years at 3 levels. The effectiveness of building standard schools in Do Luong is also shown in the quality of mass education and key education. Regarding the key quality, in the 3 school years of 2011 - 2014, the number of excellent students in Do Luong has always ranked 2nd in the province (after Vinh City), only in the 2013 - 2014 school year, Do Luong had 361 excellent students in the province and 20 excellent students at the national level. These are proud results and motivation for Do Luong to successfully implement the Resolution of the District Party Congress with 72-75% of schools meeting national standards in the condition that there is not much time from now until the end of the term.

Article and photos:Plum Blossom