Difficult to solve the problem of lack of schools

TP – According to statistics from the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City, in the 2024-2025 school year, Ho Chi Minh City will have an increase of about 24,000 students, causing a lot of pressure on schools.

Nguyen Trai Primary School (Quan Bau Ward, Vinh City, Nghe An Province) is still short of 17 classrooms. Photo: Ngoc Tu

With more than 4,200 students in 5 grades, Le Van Tho Primary School (District 12) is the school with the most students in Ho Chi Minh City. The school was originally built according to the standards of a modern primary school, with a semi-boarding model, students will study 2 sessions/day. However, the population is increasing so much that the school only allows students to study 1 session/day and teach extra classes on Saturdays. Ms. Huynh Thi Tuyet Hoa, Principal of Le Van Tho Primary School, informed that the number of students in the school this year is 48 students/class. In previous years, the number of students in each class was always over 50 students/class.

This year, due to the high number of students, Nguyen Trai Primary School (Quan Bau Ward, Vinh City, Nghe An Province) had to renovate some multi-functional classrooms to make them cultural classrooms. In the 2024-2025 school year, the school will enroll 10 first graders with 384 students. Meanwhile, the number of fifth graders graduating from school is only 333. Therefore, the school has to add 2 more classrooms.

“Currently, the school is lacking 3 cultural classrooms and 14 functional classrooms,” said Ms. Le Thi Hong Lam, Principal of Nguyen Trai Primary School. More seriously, by the 2025-2026 school year, Nguyen Trai Primary School will lack 21 classrooms, including 7 cultural classrooms and 14 multifunctional classrooms.

As an industrial province, Dong Nai has to continuously build new schools to meet the rapidly increasing number of students every year. However, the speed of building new schools still cannot meet the learning needs.

It is expected that from now until September 5, Ho Chi Minh City will put into use 413 new classrooms. From September 5 to the end of December this year, Ho Chi Minh City will also put into use 63 new classrooms with a total investment of about 267 billion VND.

No longer having to study in shifts, but the two most populous "super wards" of Bien Hoa City (Dong Nai), Trang Dai Ward and Long Binh Ward (each ward has from 120,000 to 150,000 people), are always overloaded with students at primary and secondary levels, so they often have to borrow other facilities to "eliminate shifts". Meanwhile, projects to build new schools and add classrooms are slow due to procedural problems.

In Long Binh Ward, the Long Binh 1 Primary School project was planned to be invested in in 2018 but has yet to be implemented due to land issues. To implement the project, the State must reclaim more than 1.3 hectares of land from 44 households. However, the difficulty in confirming the origin of the land and the inappropriate land price framework have caused the project to be delayed for the past 5 years. This has forced more than 1,200 students of Phan Dinh Phung Primary School to go to Binh Da Primary School (Binh Da Ward) to study.

Manh Thang - Nhan Le - Ngoc Tu