The rice warehouse of Khao Mang Ethnic Semi-Boarding Secondary School (Mu Cang Chai district, Yen Bai province) is empty - Photo: C.TUE
In the past two weeks, many boarding schools in Mu Cang Chai district (Yen Bai province) have had to "ask for help" from local authorities, mobilizing parents and businesses to lend and borrow rice to cook for their students. boarding school due to delay in receiving rice support.
According to the provisions of Decree No. 116-2016 of the Government on policies to support students and high schools in extremely difficult communes and villages, each boarding student is supported with 15kg of rice/month.
Normally, at the beginning of March every year, boarding schools in Mu Cang Chai district are allocated rice to feed students in the second semester. However, this year (until March 3) all All boarding schools in Mu Cang Chai district have not received rice support.
The rice warehouse is empty
Around 9:22 a.m. on March 3, reporter Youth Online arrived at Khao Mang Secondary Ethnic Boarding High School (Mu Cang Chai district, Yen Bai province), at the same time that Mr. Thao A Khay (school employee) had just borrowed 30kg of rice from the students' parents to cook for the students. Boarding students eat lunch.
"The rice support for the students ran out, so the school encouraged parents to lend 15kg/student for cooking. When the rice support is provided, the school will return it" - Mr. Thao A Khay said and quickly brought it back. rice into the kitchen to cook.
Mr. Thao A Khay went to get rice from the student's parents' house to cook for boarding students - Photo: C. TUE
"The rice warehouse is very clean now, there is nothing left" - Ms. Duong Thi Lieu, vice principal of Khao Mang Secondary Ethnic Semi-Boarding High School, said when the reporter asked to take her down to the school's rice warehouse.
Standing in the empty rice warehouse, Ms. Lieu said that since the beginning of March, rice support for 3 boarding students had been used up, while the school had not received rice support for the second semester.
Therefore, for the past two weeks, the school is mobilizing to borrow 15kg of rice for each boarding student, to have rice to cook for them every day. By March 22, the school had borrowed about 3 tons of rice from the students' parents.
“As you can see, the warehouse is completely out of rice. Today and tomorrow, students will go home for the weekend, the school continues to mobilize parents to lend rice so they can cook rice for the children next week" - Ms. Lieu said, and said when this rice loan will be available. Just provide new rice.
Ms. Lieu said that according to documents from the Yen Bai Department of Education and Training, rice support will be provided to students before April 10.
“Every day, the school needs about 260kg of rice to cook for more than 500 children. If this situation lasts longer, it will be difficult for the school to manage because most of the school's students are of the Mong ethnic group, of which 50% of the students are from poor households, not every house has rice available" - Ms. Lieu speak.
The book records the amount of rice that Khao Mang Secondary School borrows from parents of students in all classes to return later - Photo: C. TUE
The school hopes to receive rice soon
As for Ho Bon Primary and Secondary Ethnic Boarding High School for Ethnic Minorities, they also ran out of rice support from March 8. To have rice to cook for 3 boarding students, the school mobilized parents to contribute nearly 635 tons of rice and borrowed 5 tons of rice from outside business households.
Mr. Nguyen Xuan Truong, principal of Ho Bon Primary and Secondary Ethnic Boarding High School, said that like previous years, the school only reserves rice to ensure children eat until mid-March.
"When we learned about the late distribution of rice support, the school advised the Ho Bon commune government to mobilize rice sources to ensure there would be rice for the children to eat before April 10" - Mr. Truong said and hoped I want to be provided with rice sooner, especially in the second semester so that the school can be more proactive in ensuring rice for students to cook.
Students at Lao Chai Secondary Ethnic Semi-Boarding High School bring rice from home to lend to the school - Photo: C. TUE
Lao Chai Secondary Ethnic Semi-Boarding High School also encountered some difficulties due to the delay in receiving rice support.
To ensure cooking rice for more than 600 boarding students, in the past two weeks, the school also had to mobilize each student's parent to lend 10-15kg and borrow from businesses in the commune.
"The mobilization of rice is only guaranteed to last until the end of March. We hope the state will support rice for students more promptly in the coming time and in the following years so that the school can well organize the care and feeding of students." nurturing semi-boarding students" - said Mr. Vu Van Manh, vice principal of Lao Chai Secondary Boarding School for Ethnic Minorities.
8 boarding schools in Mu Cang Chai district had to borrow about 40 tons of rice - Photo: C. TUE
Most schools in Mu Cang Chai can only proactively use rice until the end of March - Photo: C. TUE
The longer the delivery of rice support is delayed, the more difficult it will be for schools - Photo: C. TUE
Schools only have enough rice to last until the end of March
Mr. Vu Anh Thuy, Head of the Education and Training Department of Mu Cang Chai district, said that the entire district has 20 ethnic minority boarding schools with nearly 12.000 boarding students.
According to regulations, the annual distribution of rice to support boarding students takes place in early March (semester 3) and October (semester 2). But this year, up to this point, the schools have not received rice support.
“The People's Committee of Yen Bai province has decided to grant norms. However, through information, the General Department of National Reserves is bidding, so up to this point it has not been issued. Therefore, some schools are short of rice so they have to borrow money," Mr. Thuy said, adding that according to statistics as of March 19, there were 3 primary and secondary schools that had to borrow about 8 tons of rice from parents and students. business households in the area.
The remaining schools only have enough to use in March. If there is any delay, the schools will have difficulty because of the number of students staying for the winter.
Mr. Thuy also said that the department has considered the option of borrowing rice from the reserve warehouse of Mu Cang Chai district if the rice supply is slower than expected.
Previously, on March 5, the Yen Bai Department of Education and Training sent an official dispatch to the State Reserve Department of Hoang Lien Son area and Vinh Phu area requesting to assign to districts, towns and cities more than 3 1,9 million tons of rice, delivery time before April 10.
