Allow schools to be opened on both residential and other land to remove obstacles?
The demand for school places for children of Ho Chi Minh City residents is always very high, but while many private schools in operation have to be "split" into many small facilities like a house, schools with slightly better facilities also have great difficulty in applying for operating licenses. Faced with the reality that about a dozen private schools have been applying for licenses to establish schools for many years but have not been considered due to land regulations, the City People's Committee had to submit to the City People's Committee Party Committee a policy to remove difficulties related to the conditions for granting licenses to establish private schools in the area.
On May 10, the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee sent a document to the City People's Committee agreeing on the policy as proposed by the City People's Committee. To implement this policy, on May 22, Vice Chairwoman of the City People's Committee Tran Thi Dieu Thuy issued a document directing the Department of Education and Training to remove obstacles in licensing private schools.
Accordingly, the leaders of the City People's Committee assigned the Department of Education and Training to preside over and coordinate with relevant departments, branches and localities in the process of appraising dossiers for the establishment of non-public schools. When there are problems related to planning and land in the establishment of schools, they will be considered and applied when resolving them. Specifically, investors are allowed to build new school buildings, renovate and upgrade existing buildings into schools on land with the purpose of using as housing or other land use purposes but not in the case of changing the purpose of land use according to the provisions of Article 121 of the 2024 Land Law and temporarily "not yet develop a land use plan to submit to competent authorities for approval".
The removal of obstacles to grant licenses to private schools will be carried out from the date of issuance of the document until the end of this year, with the requirement to only consider and resolve cases that have been completed by the Department of Education and Training and submitted before December 31. The Department of Education and Training is assigned to preside over and advise on the resolution of each case, depending on the content of the obstacles to propose specific solutions and directions for each proposal to establish a private school.
After this direction to remove obstacles, a school representative confirmed to us that it had been licensed last June. In addition, according to the working schedule of the Department of Education and Training, on July 22, the functional departments of this Department will assess the conditions for granting an educational operation license to Ham Nghi High School at 1242-1242A National Highway 1A, Binh Tan Ward. This is a private school that has stopped operating for many years. Recently, the school owner has renovated the facilities at the above address to apply for resumption of operations.
In reality, the private schools that applied for operating licenses and were "stuck" above are just "victims". Because if "tightened" according to regulations, many schools that have been licensed to establish and change their operating locations in recent years have even more dilapidated facilities. A typical example of the schools that have moved to a new location is Dao Duy Tu High School. On August 15, 2023, the Vice Chairman of the City People's Committee at that time issued a decision to allow the establishment of this school on the basis of moving the headquarters from 599A Le Duc Tho, Go Vap District (old) to 371A-371B Nguyen Van Qua (old District 12).
However, in the list of 64 schools assigned by the Department of Education and Training to enroll 10th graders for the new school year, this school is not included. In the list of schools that submitted incomplete applications according to the document dated June 3 of the Department of Education and Training, Dao Duy Tu High School was assigned the following proposed solutions: Review and report on the conditions of facilities, re-propose enrollment targets for the 2025-2026 school year; develop a roadmap to reduce the student population from the next school year, ensuring the prescribed area for each student. Present at the new address of Dao Duy Tu High School, we found that the school is just a renovated house.
Immediately review educational land funds in real estate projects
Although houses, factories, and offices have been converted into schools, to see clearly whether the facilities of the private high school system in the city are guaranteed or not, just look at the number of 64 private schools assigned to enroll 10th graders. After reviewing, only 43 schools were established Admission Councils in the first round, meaning 21 schools "slipped" in terms of facilities criteria. The above situation also shows that the number of private high schools accessing land for education in real estate projects is quite small, mainly from residential land, commercial land, production land, and even agricultural land plots.
To achieve the goal of achieving 300 classrooms/10,000 school-age people this year, in September 2023, the Chairman of the City People's Committee held a meeting to listen to the Department of Education and Training report on the progress and solutions to complete 4,500 classrooms to serve the above important goal. At this meeting, the Chairman of the City People's Committee directed relevant departments, branches and the Department of Education and Training to review the entire school network in the area; increase land funds for education by many measures such as reclaiming warehouses, abandoned land, and ineffectively used land to prioritize school construction. Arrange educational land funds in new urban areas, resettlement areas, and densely populated areas to build schools. Urge project owners to complete the investment in school construction or hand over the land for school construction to the locality.
According to the list we have, up to now there are at least 69 housing projects and residential areas that must reserve land to build schools at all levels, of which the project with the largest educational land fund is up to 16,900m2. In a proposal to the Standing Committee of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee on July 14, Mr. Le Hoang Chau, Chairman of the City Real Estate Association, stated: In the period 2015-2023, the Department of Construction reported that 86 real estate and commercial housing projects in the old Ho Chi Minh City area were suspended or not implemented, accounting for more than half of the total 138 licensed projects with a land use scale of up to 964 hectares. Currently, the city has 220 projects, including 72 projects transferred by the Prime Minister's Working Group and 148 projects compiled by the Real Estate Association, requesting the city to remove obstacles. From 2016 to 2024, the city has had at least 371 real estate projects eligible for capital mobilization. Therefore, if only a portion of the above housing development projects have planned land areas for education, the land fund for education will increase significantly.
The representative of the Real Estate Association also requested the City People's Committee to direct the Department of Agriculture and Environment to preside over and coordinate with departments and branches to urgently review and submit to the Standing Committee of the City People's Committee and the City People's Council for consideration and approval of the list of 371 land plots in wards and communes of the old Ho Chi Minh City that have been registered by enterprises to implement pilot projects according to Resolution No. 171/2024/QH15 of the National Assembly, with a total area of up to more than 2,000 hectares. In the old Binh Duong area, there have also been 245 land plots registered by investors to implement pilot projects with a total area of 1,592 hectares for housing development. Thus, when projects have to reserve a certain area of land to build schools, private school investors will have many opportunities to access educational land funds. The remaining issue is how closely the management of land funds for education in real estate projects depends on the authorities and wards and communes of the city.
Source: https://cand.com.vn/giao-duc/bai-cuoi-nha-dau-tu-kho-tiep-can-dat-quy-hoach-danh-cho-giao-duc-i776073/
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