Standing Committee of Nghe An Provincial People's Council reviews results of supervision on school arrangement

On the morning of June 6, the Standing Committee of Nghe An Provincial People's Council held a regular meeting for May 2025 to evaluate the results of activities in May, give opinions on some thematic contents and discuss key tasks for June.

Comrade Hoang Nghia Hieu - Standing Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Council chaired the meeting.

Attending the meeting were comrades: Le Hong Vinh - Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee; Nguyen Nam Dinh - Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Permanent Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Council; Nguyen Nhu Khoi - Member of the Provincial Party Executive Committee, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Council; Thai Thi An Chung - Member of the Provincial Party Executive Committee, Deputy Head of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation...

There are still 882 separate schools, lacking over 4,000 teachers.

At the meeting, the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Council listened to and commented on the report on the results of the Provincial People's Council's thematic supervision on the planning and arrangement of the network of schools and classes at educational institutions in the province. This is an important content to effectively implement the goals of fundamental and comprehensive innovation in education and training, associated with streamlining the apparatus and improving the quality of teaching and learning.

According to the report of the Provincial People's Council Supervision Delegation, the leadership and direction in planning and arranging the school network has always been focused on and implemented systematically and consistently by Party committees and authorities at all levels. The province has actively concretized the education and training development plan to 2030, with a vision to 2050 in the overall Provincial Planning approved by the Prime Minister.

To date, the province has 1,507 schools at all levels, with almost every commune, ward and town having a public kindergarten and primary school, creating favorable conditions for students to attend school. In the 2021-2025 period, Nghe An has merged 31 schools and reduced 200 separate schools; many schools have been invested in new construction and renovation; facilities and teaching equipment have been enhanced from various sources. Notably, the province has spent nearly 60,000 billion VND on education and training, accounting for 37% of the total local budget expenditure.

The non-public education system has also developed strongly in urban areas, contributing to reducing pressure on the public sector. Meanwhile, vocational and university education has focused on improving training quality, linked to the practical needs of the labor market. The rate of students with jobs after graduation is on average more than 81%.

Along with infrastructure development, the staff and teachers are also strengthened, improved, responsible and increasingly meet the requirements of educational innovation. The rate of teachers meeting standards in terms of qualifications and professional capacity is increasing, especially in key schools and favorable areas.

Despite many remarkable results, the process of planning and arranging the school network in Nghe An still reveals some shortcomings. Notably, the whole province still has 882 separate schools, making it difficult to invest synchronously and organize teaching and learning. Some localities merged schools and school locations without fully preparing facilities, leading to overload at the main school location.

In addition, the province is lacking over 4,000 teachers, especially in the subjects of Information Technology, Foreign Languages, Music, Fine Arts and new subjects according to the 2018 general education program. Teacher recruitment is still slow compared to the assigned target. In some localities, the situation of degraded classrooms, lack of classrooms and teaching equipment has not been completely resolved.

Regarding vocational education, the basic staff has been standardized in terms of qualifications and professional titles, however, there is still a shortage of high-quality vocational teachers. The scale, structure and quality of skilled human resources still do not meet the requirements for teaching key industries and occupations at the international ASEAN level; there is no preferential policy for vocational schools specific to ethnic minority areas, and there is no policy to attract highly skilled teachers.

From the monitoring results, the Provincial People's Council proposed many recommendations to improve the effectiveness of planning and arranging the school network in the coming period for the Ministry of Education and Training and the People's Committee of Nghe An province; notably, it proposed to continue to review and comprehensively evaluate the planning and arrangement of the school network in the period of 2021-2025 to develop a suitable plan for the period of 2026 - 2030, especially in the context of implementing the two-level local government model.

At the same time, evaluate the effectiveness of current policies and guidelines, propose adjustments to mechanisms that are no longer suitable, and develop new policies that are closer to reality; in which, prioritize policies to attract and support teachers of IT, English and vocational education in remote areas; recruit enough teachers according to the assigned staff, overcome local surplus and shortage and improve the capacity of the team through training and development.

Regarding infrastructure, the monitoring team recommended continuing to merge small-scale schools that do not meet teaching conditions; merging separate locations and combined classes in the province on the basis of ensuring traffic conditions, travel distance, education quality, consulting people's opinions as well as being suitable to reality; focusing on investing in the system of boarding and semi-boarding schools for ethnic minorities; speeding up the construction of Huynh Thuc Khang High School's second campus; considering receiving and expanding Hermann Gmeiner Vinh High School; reviewing and utilizing surplus headquarters after administrative arrangement to convert into classrooms and public housing; encouraging socialized investment in education. Regarding vocational education, the monitoring team recommended arranging in the direction of streamlining, quality, linking with regions and the labor market...

Overall assessment, the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee emphasized: Nghe An's educational picture is a bright spot in the country. For preschool and general education, the quality of comprehensive education is constantly improving, in the 2023-2024 school year, it ranked 12th nationwide, up 24 places compared to 2020.

Regarding vocational education, Nghe An is achieving high efficiency with the rate of students having jobs after graduation always maintained at a positive level. Many training professions have initially met the development needs of the province as well as the domestic and foreign labor market.

Besides the outstanding results, comrade Le Hong Vinh also frankly acknowledged the remaining shortcomings and limitations, and specifically analyzed the causes from both objective and subjective factors.

On that basis, the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee discussed and clarified a number of contents mentioned by the monitoring delegation in the report and opinions at the meeting; at the same time, agreed on the direction to overcome, complete the planning of the school network and improve the quality of comprehensive education in the coming period associated with the organization of the 2-level local government model.

Complete the report to submit to the Provincial People's Council for consideration and resolution.

Concluding the meeting, Comrade Hoang Nghia Hieu - Standing Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Council affirmed: The Party and the State always pay special attention to improving the quality of education and training. For Nghe An, education and training are always identified as a priority area of ​​special concern.

The Chairman of the Provincial People's Council acknowledged and highly appreciated the thematic monitoring report which comprehensively and objectively reflected the current situation of planning and arranging the school network in the province. In particular, the report highlighted the outstanding results achieved by the education sector in recent times.

He emphasized: The good news is that the quality of comprehensive education and key education have both made clear progress; the national standard school target has been completed according to the Resolution of the 19th Provincial Party Congress.

Besides, the Chairman of the Provincial People's Council also highly appreciated the frank report pointing out the shortcomings and limitations and making appropriate and practical recommendations, suitable to the management requirements and development orientation of the province.

To complete the report, he requested the Supervisory Delegation to continue to supplement the legal basis for comparison and evaluation; at the same time, synthesize more recommendations from the grassroots, ensuring that it accurately reflects the actual situation and needs of the locality.

Based on the 12 recommendations of the Supervisory Delegation, the Chairman of the Provincial People's Council basically agreed, and at the same time proposed to review, adjust and supplement a number of key contents, in which special attention was paid to the proposals: studying the plan to reduce the number of separate schools, but need to ensure learning and living conditions for students when merging; building a mechanism to train and foster young talents in a systematic and long-term manner; removing barriers to enrollment according to administrative boundaries to create conditions for students to study in accordance with their abilities and aspirations.

The Chairman of the Provincial People's Council also requested the Provincial People's Committee to pay attention to and consider the recommendations of localities related to the planning and arrangement of schools. At the same time, the Provincial People's Council's Culture and Social Affairs Committee was assigned to fully absorb the opinions at the meeting, complete the thematic supervision report as a basis for drafting a Resolution to be submitted to the mid-year meeting of the Provincial People's Council in 2025 for consideration and resolution.