Building national standard schools: Lack of resources and risk of "falling" standards

(Baonghean) -The Resolution of the 17th Provincial Party Congress (2010-2015 term) sets a target of 60-65% of general schools in the province meeting standards by the end of 2015. Over the past years, all levels, sectors and schools in the province have made great efforts to achieve this target, but through the supervision of the Department of Culture and Society and the Provincial People's Council, this target is very difficult to achieve.

Lack of resources

Nghia Loi Kindergarten (Nghia Dan) was recognized as meeting level I standards in the 2007-2008 school year. Although located in a remote area with difficult economic conditions, the quality of the management staff and teachers has been improved with more than 80% of the staff and teachers meeting above standards. The school focuses on innovating teaching methods and caring for the children. Socialization work is focused on the "poor children" model, that is, mobilizing working days, raw materials and materials from the people to upgrade facilities, build more classrooms, school gates, and campuses; contributing trees to build flower gardens, ensuring "green - clean - beautiful". Similarly, at Nghia Hoan Secondary School (Tan Ky district) which was recognized as meeting standards in 2007, the school continues to focus on investing in both human resources and facilities to maintain and promote the title of a standard school. The percentage of teachers meeting above standards is 97.4%; 21/39 teachers achieved district excellent teachers and 3 provincial excellent teachers. The school's educational quality has continuously maintained its position as one of the top schools in the district for many years. Socialization work has been focused on, contributing to creating a spacious school with 13 high-rise classrooms and practice classrooms, computer rooms, libraries, traditions...

The Provincial People's Council's monitoring delegation inspected the computer room of Nghia Hoan Secondary School (Tan Ky).

Although the rate of schools meeting the standards in the province is currently higher than the national average, however, looking at the target set by the Provincial Party Congress, according to managers, it is very difficult to achieve. Currently, apart from Cua Lo Town, which has 95.5% of standard schools, of which the rate of schools meeting level II standards is 27.2%, all localities have not met the target. Through the monitoring activities of the Provincial People's Council's Culture and Social Affairs Committee in some localities, it can be seen that the difficulty in building standard schools today is the resources to invest in building facilities.

Nghia Dan is one of the units with a low rate of standard schools, with 29/69 schools, reaching 37.68%. If we look at the targets of the District Party Congress and the Provincial Party Congress, from now until the end of the 2015 term, Nghia Dan must have 13 more standard schools. However, according to the Vice Chairman of the District People's Committee, Mr. Vo Tien Sy Pho: "If we try, from now until the end of 2015, at best, we will only have 8 more schools". The biggest difficulty in Nghia Dan today is the lack of resources to invest in infrastructure. Previously, schools in areas with favorable conditions to build standard schools have now been separated and belong to Thai Hoa Town. On the other hand, from 2011 until now, when the program to solidify schools and classrooms is no longer implemented, the locality has completely lost a source of infrastructure investment, creating favorable conditions for building standard schools.

In addition, the support source for building standard schools according to the province's policy is currently too low, only from 60 to 210 million VND for each school at each level from kindergarten to high school, while to build a standard school on the basis of the foundation that the schools already have, it would take about 1 billion VND... The district has many extremely difficult remote communes, some of which have been newly established from agricultural and forestry farms; the facilities of many schools are weak and lacking; socialization work is extremely difficult, so building a standard school in Nghia Dan is really difficult to achieve the target. In particular, in the district, there are currently 4/25 communes that do not have a single school that meets national standards.

Risk of "falling" the standard

In addition, schools that have been recognized as meeting standards are also lacking resources to maintain standards in terms of facilities. Cua Lo High School was the first high school in the province to be recognized as meeting national standards since 2004, but according to the report of the school's Board of Directors, the facilities that were previously invested in have now degraded. Some items such as functional classrooms no longer meet standards and lack of activity rooms for professional groups; toilets for students. Or at Nghia Hoan Secondary School, there is a lack of administrative rooms, vice principal's rooms, toilets, security rooms and even school grounds according to new standards. Nghia Loi Kindergarten was recognized as meeting level I standards in 2007, but now the sanitary facilities are degraded and damaged. In addition, the school is lacking a boarding cafeteria and school grounds. Many schools are at risk of "falling" standards.

Nghia Loi Kindergarten was recognized as meeting national standards in 2007, but still lacks a hand-washing system for children.

The arrangement of staff according to the provincial norm of 1.2 teachers/class is also causing difficulties for standard-building schools, because to meet the standard of staff, the ratio of teachers to classes must first be ensured to be 1.4. For a long time, standard-building schools have had to mobilize contributions from parents to contract teachers, but not all schools and localities have been able to do so, especially in disadvantaged areas. Secondly, in some areas, especially mountainous areas, remote areas, even if there are resources, there are no teachers to teach music, foreign languages, or information technology to contract.

Building a national standard school at the general education level needs to ensure 5 standards: School organization and management; management staff, teachers and staff; education quality; facilities and teaching equipment; socialization of education. And the ultimate goal and purpose of building a national standard school is to create the best conditions for students to enjoy a comprehensive educational environment based on 5 standards. The Resolution of the 17th Provincial Party Congress (term 2010 - 2015) set a target of 60 - 65% of general education schools meeting the standards by the end of 2015, demonstrating the Party's concern and dedication to the development of education in the province. In the first 6 months of 2014, the whole province recognized 20 more schools meeting national standards, bringing the total number of schools meeting the standards to 843, reaching a rate of 54.03%.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Kim Chi - Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training, affirmed: For a long time, localities have often built standard schools in a "rolling" manner, this year this school, next year focusing on another school like "children from poor families". In terms of staff, teachers and education quality standards, schools can do it, but in terms of facilities, they will decline over time due to depreciation and deterioration, while there is no source for continuous investment every year. For example, at the preschool level, facilities such as toilets and kitchens play an extremely important role but are currently very limited. In the difficult budget conditions of the province, investment resources for building national standard schools are always a burden. And the issue of resources has now become an important and decisive factor in building national standard schools in localities.

Regarding the teacher staffing, Ms. Nguyen Thi Kim Chi said: The province has a policy of assigning 1-2 teachers/class to schools to create a remaining amount to support teachers organizing boarding lunch, while reducing the burden of staffing and the burden of the province's budget. However, this policy is only suitable for the city area, schools organizing boarding, but for the remaining schools it is not really reasonable, affecting the construction of national standard schools. In addition, the change in the standards of the Ministry of Education and Training, the later standards are higher than the previous standards such as the requirements for laboratory classrooms, leading to many schools that have just met the old standards but the new standards are not met anymore, causing difficulties in building and maintaining the title of national standard schools.

Therefore, in addition to prioritizing budget allocation, additional investment, and renovation of degraded items of national standard schools, the Education and Training Sector also needs to guide and organize appraisals to re-recognize standards according to regulations, and promote the title of standard schools. At the same time, there needs to be a solution regarding resources to invest in building standard schools, and it is necessary to increase the level of support for standard schools; pay attention to integrating many programs and projects to create resources for standard schools. Along with that, it is necessary to organize a review of the school network planning, and adjust any inappropriate places to avoid waste in terms of facilities and investment resources for education, contributing to increasing the rate of building standard schools to meet the targets set by the Resolution of the 17th Provincial Party Congress.

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