"Clearing the way"... for high-quality schools

(Baonghean) -To develop the education career to a new level, recently Nghe An Education Department continues to build projects: Building high-quality kindergartens; Planning the system of key high-quality general schools for the period 2013 - 2025 to submit to the Provincial People's Council and People's Committee. However, the pilot implementation process in some localities has not created consensus and is causing different reactions in public opinion due to some problems.

Practice hour of students of the Faculty of Biology, Vinh University. Photo: Sy Minh

The projects all point out the necessity to build based on the "Education Development Strategy 2011-2020" approved by the Prime Minister under Decision No. 711 dated June 13, 2012: "Focus on building advanced, key, high-quality educational institutions to train and foster talents and high-quality human resources for economic and social sectors".

Planning and building kindergartens and high-quality general school systems is one of the important tasks of educational management levels to improve the quality of education in the coming years, contributing to making Nghe An quickly become the political, economic and cultural center of the North Central region according to Conclusion 20 and Resolution 26 of the Politburo.

According to the project, the Department of Education and Training initially proposed to select 37 general schools. For preschool level, out of 508 schools, there are 142 public schools. In addition to converting public schools into partially financially autonomous schools, they will build in 20 districts, each district will have a high-quality preschool, with Vinh City being selected to build 12 schools out of 48 schools. However, when submitting to the Provincial People's Committee for approval and pilot implementation in some schools in Vinh City with tuition fees ranging from 256,000 VND to 540,000 VND/month, there were many different opinions so it could not be implemented.

Discussing this issue, Ms. Nguyen Thi Kim Chi - Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training of Nghe An, said: In the past, there has been a separate charter for the general school system. In the charter, it is stated: A high-quality school is a school that ensures conditions for facilities, teacher quality, and satisfies the needs of learners, and parents must voluntarily pay for tuition fees, facilities, etc. This has been implemented effectively in schools such as Phan Boi Chau Specialized School and Vinh University Specialized School. These two schools have truly become spearheads in affirming the quality of not only training and discovering talents for the homeland but also for the whole country with excellent students winning high prizes in international and national competitions. However, currently, the Law on Education has not mentioned this type of school. In the past, the Ministry of Education and Training has not yet set out any specific criteria for high-quality schools. Only in the joint circular (Education and Training, Finance, Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs) does this type of school be mentioned but does not specify the contribution level and tuition fee. Therefore, when there is a policy to build high-quality schools, it cannot be implemented because there are no specific criteria from the central government.

Regarding the construction of high-quality general schools, Ms. Nguyen Thi Kim Chi added: This is the most passionate idea and concern of the industry. According to the project, the department will initially select schools with standards above national standards; the schools will receive additional investment in facilities and teacher quality; the investment budget will be partly from the State budget and socialized.

The biggest problem with the project is that it has not been approved by the People's Council due to different opinions. On the positive side: If it is implemented as the project's purpose requires, these facilities will become a spearhead that not only contributes to discovering and nurturing high-quality human resources for the province and the country, but also gradually invests in improving facilities in schools. The issue that arises is: Will building high-quality schools create conflicts and unfairness among some schools? By all means, students will concentrate on studying at these schools, leading to imbalances in the number of students and teachers among other schools. How will this problem be solved...?

To solve the above problem, Nghe An province has proposed that the Ministry of Education and Training should soon issue legal documents with specific instructions on building high-quality schools and allow localities to pilot the model.

In August 2013, Minister of Education and Training Pham Vu Luan and the working group had a working session with the People's Committee of Nghe An province. When proposing this issue, the Ministry acknowledged the proposal and said that there would be a document directing and providing specific instructions on the content: "Project to build key, high-quality kindergartens and general schools in Nghe An province" to help the locality have a basis for approval and implementation in the area. The Nghe An Education and Training Department is still patiently waiting for the document to be issued, and when there is a document guiding the implementation, it will be implemented with the determination to bring the quality of education and training in Nghe An province to a new level.

Minh Thu