Preschool children are still disadvantaged.

(Baonghean) -Children in kindergarten age are considered the "golden" period, but in reality, they are suffering many disadvantages from the opportunity to go to school to the tuition exemption policy...

In the 2011-2012 school year, Nghe An province had 508 kindergartens, including 21,072 nursery children and 114,164 kindergarten children. The Preschool Regulations stipulate that children from 3 months to 3 years old are admitted to nursery groups and from 3 to 6 years old are admitted to kindergarten classes. However, currently, most kindergartens in Nghe An province only accept children from 2 to 3 years old into nursery groups, but in very small numbers. The reason why kindergartens do not accept children from 3 months to under 2 years old is for many reasons: the demand for sending children in this age group to school is not much; the actual scale of each school is limited; the number of children in each group is small (from 15 to 20 children/group), so the school's staff must increase, while the tuition fee is not allowed to increase; Caring for and raising children of this age is extremely difficult;... In particular, since the 2011-2012 school year, localities have had to universalize preschool education for 5-year-old children, so not only children under 2 years old, but in many places, children under 5 years old are also pushed to the "margins".

Teachers and students of Ha Huy Tap Kindergarten (Vinh City). Photo: SM

In Vinh City, in the 2011-2012 school year, there were 42 kindergartens, including 28 public schools, 5 private schools and 9 private schools. According to the Department of Education and Training of Vinh City, this year the city has 4,102 2-year-old children, but the plan of 42 kindergartens is to accept only 1,772 children, so there will be over 2,300 children without a place to study. To implement universal preschool education for 5-year-old children, Vinh City People's Committee has directed schools to accept all 4,257 5-year-old children. Therefore, out of 10,500 places for kindergarten children, there are only over 6,200 places for 3-4 year-old children. Meanwhile, at this age, the whole city has nearly 9,000 children. Thus, over 2,600 children do not go to school.

When public and non-public schools do not accept children, people are forced to look for family daycare centers to send their children. Ms. Tran Thi Hien, a worker in Bac Vinh Industrial Park, said that her average monthly income is only about 2 million VND, plus her husband's income is only 5 million VND/month. With this amount of money, in addition to paying rent and daily expenses, she cannot hire a maid to look after her child and is forced to look for a spontaneous daycare center to send her child, who is over 1 year old. She said: "Before, I had to ask my mother to come down to look after my child, but she was also sick, I had to take 2 months of unpaid leave to look after my child, but I could not take more time off, otherwise I would lose my job. My child is just over 1 year old, no school would accept him, I had to ask around to find a spontaneous daycare center, even though I knew that the conditions regarding facilities and hygiene were not guaranteed."

According to Dr. Pham Mai Chi, Institute for Early Intelligence Development Research (VICER): "This is a major limitation of preschool education, we have missed the "golden" period in the development of children's thinking and intelligence. The consequence of the lack of communication environment, lack of educational environment is that the situation of children with slow speech, slow development, autism... is increasing." Not having a place to study is already a disadvantage, children of preschool age do not enjoy any preferential treatment like preschool children when they are lucky enough to go to school.

It is thought that relevant sectors, especially the education and training sector, should take the lead in studying the above shortcomings to propose to the Central Ministries and sectors to recommend to the Government to allow children of nursery school age to be exempted from or have reduced tuition fees and receive support for their study costs like children of preschool age.

Thao Nhi