The incident arose from unfortunate negligence.

(Baonghean) - As mentioned, the merger of Tien - Thiet Secondary School was a correct policy, the new school was put into use, on the first day of school, all students came to school, but on the opening day, something unexpected happened, many parents prevented their children from going to school.

To reach the decision to merge Nghi Tien and Nghi Thiet schools into Tien - Thiet Secondary School, on July 10, 2008, Nghi Loc District People's Committee held a meeting to approve the district's educational development plan, the current state of school size, and at the same time, raised the requirement to merge some schools with small number of students, to improve the teaching quality of teachers and students. At this meeting, delegates discussed, expressed their opinions, and reached a consensus: “The merger of junior high schools under 12 classes in the school network system planning approved by the Department of Education and Training is an inevitable requirement for units with too few classes and students in order to better improve the quality of comprehensive education in general schools. The merger of Nghi Tien and Nghi Thiet schools is part of this plan and the responsibility of the Nghi Loc District People's Committee and Department of Education and Training is to focus on directing the two localities and two schools to carry out merger procedures in accordance with regulations”. In Notice No. 144/TB.UBND of Nghi Loc district dated July 21, 2008, the conclusion of this working session also emphasized: "The leaders of the two communes did a good job of informing and thoroughly disseminating the policy, purpose and requirements of the school merger to all parents, students and people in the commune and agreed to support the school merger plan. Widely inform teachers and students of the two schools about the requirements of the school merger starting from the 2008-2009 school year".

Class time of students at Tien - Thiet Secondary School.

Due to the long construction process of the new school's facilities, Tien - Thiet Secondary School still had to study at the two old schools until the 2012 - 2013 school year. From the 2013 - 2014 school year, when some new classrooms were completed, the school transferred students from Nghi Tien commune school to study at the new school. After 2 years of studying at the common school, Nghi Tien students attended school regularly, the quality of education was improved (in the 2013 - 2014 school year, Tien - Thiet Secondary School was recognized by the district People's Committee as an advanced unit). When the new school's facilities were completed, the district Department of Education and Training consulted with the Nghi Loc district People's Committee to plan to merge students from Nghi Thiet school to study at the common school from the 2015 - 2016 school year.

On the first day of the new school year 2015 - 2016 (August 24), 100% of students at Nghi Thiet school attended the new school. But the unexpected happened, before the opening day of the new school year, some parents of Trung Kien village, Nghi Thiet commune including 4 hamlets (Chua 1, Chua 2, Ban hamlet and Rong hamlet) gathered, distributed information about the opening day not allowing their children to go to school. On the opening morning (September 5), while Nghi Tien students attended school in full, only 116 Nghi Thiet students went to school, the remaining 204 students were prevented by their parents from going to school. By September 24, 145/320 Nghi Thiet students in all grades had not yet gone to school.

After researching, some parents wondered: Studying at a new school, the children have to go to school further, more difficult. Nghi Thiet has more students, so why not put the school in Nghi Thiet but in Nghi Tien? The road where children go to school every day is currently under construction, traffic is not guaranteed. Why did the school not inform parents about the transfer before the new school year?! Although the merger was implemented since 2008, with many meetings between authorities at all levels and many components, parents were not consulted or given opinions on the location of the new school.

In fact, since the school merger policy was issued (in 2008), Nghi Loc District People's Committee has assigned the commune government, school and related sectors to have a plan to propagate and mobilize people and parents, to do a good job of mobilizing students to go to school. But unfortunately, during the implementation process, Nghi Thiet Commune government and the school were slow and confused in propaganda and mobilization work. Nghi Loc District People's Committee and the Department of Education and Training have not really taken drastic action to grasp the situation and have an early direction plan. The process of building the new school has been prolonged, and the facilities when put into use have not been completely completed... Taking advantage of that negligence, a group of people for personal purposes (including retired commune officials who do not have children going to school) have incited the innocent and simple villagers that: the commune government and the school's actions are not public, transparent, undemocratic, leading to unnecessary disputes for parents; Some parents, not fully understanding the problem, because of temporary frustration, hastily prevented their children from going to school.

Since parents banned their children from going to school to protest the school merger, many students have been calling teachers every day to express their desire to go to school. Some students are afraid of being seen by their parents, so they have to dress up like they are going out, then go to school to borrow their friends' uniforms. Some students go to school, but do not dare to bring their books home. Many parents are starting to worry that their children will skip school and be idle at home, without someone to supervise them, which will lead to social evils.

The fact that many Nghi Thiet students have not yet come to school has greatly affected the activity plans as well as the organization of teaching and learning at Tien - Thiet Secondary School. Sharing about this, teacher Hoang Van Hung, the school's Team Leader, confided: Since the new school year began, the Team movements organized by the school have been completely disrupted, unable to carry out collective activities. Students who have been the school's Team Leaders for the past 4 years now only attend school for a few days and then take a break, the school has to temporarily elect a new Team Leader. Every day when going to school, teachers look at the class and count how many students are absent; besides, they are very worried because if a student does not come to class, they will lose the opportunity to learn new lessons, especially for the final year students.

Who is right and who is wrong will be clarified in the coming time, but with the view of not letting students miss the new school year, departments, branches, organizations and functional agencies of Nghi Loc district, Department of Education and Training... have stepped in, propagandized and mobilized so that parents can clearly see the purpose and meaning of merging into a common learning location, avoiding being incited, enticed, and preventing their children from going to school.

(To be continued)

PV Group