Preparing for the new school year: The whole country still lacks more than 35,000 classrooms

In less than a month, students across the country will officially begin the new school year. At this time, the review, construction and repair of schools are in the final stages.

There is still the situation of temporary learning and combined learning.

According to the Director of the Department of Planning and Finance ( Ministry of Education and Training ) Tran Thanh Dam, the whole country currently has 618,284 public classrooms at all levels from preschool to high school. Of these, the number of solid classrooms is 554,142, accounting for 89.6%.

The rate of solidified classrooms has increased from 78.2% in 2015 to 87.1% in 2025. Facilities such as libraries, subject classrooms, offices, teachers' houses, canteens, boarding houses, toilets, clean water, teaching equipment, etc. have also received investment attention.

However, the shortage of classrooms still exists, especially in localities with rapidly growing populations, remote areas, ethnic minority areas and areas with special difficulties. Specifically, preschool education is still short of 27,953 classrooms; primary education is short of 7,491 classrooms to ensure each class has one classroom, serving the 2-session/day program.

This figure does not include the classrooms needed to meet the prescribed class size standards. Notably, there are still 6,477 classrooms borrowed and rented, concentrated in disadvantaged areas, causing considerable pressure on teachers and students in organizing stable and long-term teaching and learning.

Temporary learning, combined learning or lack of specialized classrooms also affect the implementation of new programs and student capacity development activities.

For localities with a large number of students across the country such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, ensuring enough schools is not easy to do. Mr. Tran The Cuong, Director of the Department of Education and Training of Hanoi City, said that in the 2024-2025 school year, the city has built 43 new schools but it is only the first step to meet the shortage of schools in the area.

Regarding Ho Chi Minh City, Director of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City Nguyen Van Hieu shared that the city currently has a scale of more than 2.6 million students and has been divided into 16 professional clusters according to wards and communes to ensure effective direction and professional exchange.

After the administrative unit merger, school construction continued to be focused on, with the goal of 300 classrooms for every 10,000 school-age people, contributing to reducing class sizes. Ho Chi Minh City also pioneered the application of GIS maps in enrollment, arranging primary school students according to the distance from home to school, to reduce traffic pressure.

Launch a lightning campaign to build 100 schools for border communes

Recently, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chaired a meeting with ministries and branches on implementing a campaign to build schools for border communes, including dormitories for students and teachers, after the Politburo issued Notice 81-TB/TW dated July 18, 2025 on the policy of investing in building schools for border communes.

Accordingly, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh requested to launch a rapid campaign to build 100 schools for border communes from now until August 30, 2026, meaning the deadline is only 13 months.

The Prime Minister requested to mobilize the strength of the entire political system, ministries and branches must join hands, join efforts, and unite hearts; People's Committees of provinces must actively participate to ensure infrastructure for construction.

According to preliminary statistics from the Ministry of Education and Training, by the 2024-2025 school year, the total number of students in need of boarding and semi-boarding is more than 332,000, but only nearly 59,000 students are studying at 22 ethnic boarding schools and 160 ethnic semi-boarding schools.

Thus, there are more than 273,000 students who need to study at boarding schools but have not been able to study at boarding schools and are studying at general schools.

Currently, boarding and semi-boarding students study and live at school and enjoy the State's policies. The average annual income is about 23 million VND/boarding student, 16 million VND/semi-boarding student.

To meet the aspirations and ensure the rights of students, the Ministry of Education and Training proposed to invest in building new and renovating boarding schools in 248 communes with a system of facilities that fully and synchronously meet the needs of studying and living in boarding and semi-boarding schools of students and teachers.

Implementation period is from now until 2027. Construction investment capital mainly includes the central budget, the rest is local budget and other legal resources.

In addition, the education sector needs to coordinate with relevant parties to perfect regulations to ensure that students in land border communes enjoy boarding and semi-boarding policies suitable to the reality of terrain and geographical distance;

have a suitable plan for arranging teachers; ensure budget to maintain school operations and regime for teachers.

Regarding the task of building 248 schools for border communes, Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son emphasized: "This is a political task that needs to be done quickly." Minister Nguyen Kim Son requested that localities must be unanimous and coordinate.

Directors of the Department of Education and Training of 22 border provinces must do a good job of consulting to have the best boarding schools, built in a reasonable manner, suitable to practical conditions.

Source: https://phunuvietnam.vn/chuan-bi-nam-hoc-moi-ca-nuoc-con-thieu-hon-35-nghin-phong-hoc-2025080714011896.htm