Lack of rooms, students have to take exams in… garages

No time for meetings

38 classrooms with nearly 1,800 students, but Quynh Phuong Secondary School (Quynh Mai Ward, Nghe An ) only has 17 solid classrooms.

Thiếu phòng, học sinh phải làm bài thi ở… nhà để xe- Ảnh 1. — The dilapidated building of Quynh Phuong Secondary School still has to be used due to lack of classrooms.

This school currently has 2 2-storey buildings, one of which was built in 2006, the other was newly built in 2015. However, the 2 high-rise buildings only have 22 rooms, 5 of which must be arranged for functional rooms such as the library, computer room, etc., so the number of classrooms is only 17.

For many years, the school has had to organize two shifts a day because there are not enough classrooms. This school year is even more difficult as the school has added four more classes compared to last year.

Mr. Ho Tuan Anh, Principal of Quynh Phuong Secondary School, said that last school year, the school had 34 classes, enough to teach 2 shifts. 17 classes of grades 6 and 9 studied in the morning, and in the afternoon, rooms were reserved for grades 7 and 8. But this school year, the number of students increased significantly, so they had to be arranged into 38 classes. Therefore, the school had to arrange 4 more classes by renovating the rooms of the old, degraded building, and each class had to have 45 - 50 students.

Thiếu phòng, học sinh phải làm bài thi ở… nhà để xe- Ảnh 2. — A classroom at Quynh Phuong Secondary School

Due to lack of rooms, the school cannot arrange practice rooms for students and does not have a multi-purpose hall, music room, art room, medical room, etc. like other schools.

"According to the standards, there should be four science labs, but there are none here, which affects the quality of teaching and learning. Students cannot practice properly and have to make do with outdoor lessons. Without practice, teachers have to teach by rote," Mr. Anh shared.

On exam days, students from each class had to be divided into smaller groups. There were not enough rooms, so the school had to arrange for students to take the exam in the… parking lot. The schedule was packed with two shifts, and there were no free days for teachers’ professional meetings and Party activities. Mr. Tuan Anh said that the school had to arrange for students to have one period off every Wednesday afternoon so that teachers could have professional meetings.

To implement the policy of teaching 2 sessions/day, the school had to struggle to make ends meet by opening classes to improve gifted students, organizing outdoor sports and extracurricular activities. However, these classes can only be held on sunny days, but not on rainy days.

Mr. Anh also said that in the coming school years, the number of students at the school is expected to continue to increase sharply and if more classrooms are not built in time, the school will "collapse".

Thiếu phòng, học sinh phải làm bài thi ở… nhà để xe- Ảnh 3. — Quynh Phuong Secondary School had to use the teachers' garage as an exam room due to lack of classrooms.

Similarly, Quynh Lap Secondary School (Tan Mai Ward, Nghe An) has 2 2-storey buildings, built in 2009 and 2017, including 26 rooms. However, currently, 9 of those rooms have to be arranged for functional rooms and only 17 classrooms remain. This year, the school has more than 1,200 students with 27 classes, so it has to study in 2 shifts.

Mr. Ngo Van Binh, Principal of Quynh Lap Secondary School, said that in the coming years, the number of students will continue to increase and if more classrooms are not built, it will be impossible to arrange classes. The school has submitted a petition to the ward leaders to soon have a new construction project to have enough classrooms for the following school years.

School construction projects… stand still

A leader of the old Hoang Mai town said that before implementing the two-level local government , the town had established a project to build new classrooms in the two schools mentioned above. However, after the district level was abolished, the project was stopped.

Likewise, Quang Trung Primary School (Thanh Vinh Ward, Nghe An) is having to rent facilities from a local university for more than 1,100 students to attend class because the school has been demolished to make way for a new one.

According to Ms. Tu Thi Thu Huong, Principal of Quang Trung Primary School, after the project to build a new school was approved, the People's Committee of Vinh City (old) provided the school with funds to rent a temporary place to study, but only for 2 school years. The monthly cost to rent this facility is 160 million VND. However, due to lack of classrooms, the school had to teach 2 cross-shifts, even on Saturdays.

Thiếu phòng, học sinh phải làm bài thi ở… nhà để xe- Ảnh 4. — Quang Trung Primary School after demolition is still an empty lot

Meanwhile, the project to build a new Quang Trung Primary School was approved by the People's Committee of Vinh City (old), and assigned to the People's Committee of Quang Trung Ward (old) as the investor. In 2024, the school was demolished and then stopped.

"Having to rent a place to teach is very inconvenient because there are many rental units here, including businesses, so students cannot go down to the campus to play. Each lesson can only be spent in the classroom. We really hope the project will be completed soon. But with the current progress, we will probably have to extend the rental contract," said Ms. Huong.

In the same situation, more than 1,000 students of Quang Trung Secondary School (Thanh Vinh Ward) are also having to rent a place to teach and study because the school was also demolished to rebuild. However, the project's progress has only stopped at the stage of clearing the land and then... shelved.

A leader of Thanh Vinh Ward said that before implementing the two-level local government, Vinh City (old) had 19 school construction projects with a total investment of nearly 775 billion VND with investment policies. However, after abolishing the district-level government, the projects were stalled and the competent authority still had no direction on transferring the projects to the new ward level to receive and manage according to regulations, leading to insufficient basis for the new ward People's Committee to carry out the next procedures.

Shortage of more than 4,000 teachers

Not only lacking schools and classes, Nghe An is also lacking more than 4,000 teachers (according to the regulation ratio of 1.9 teachers/class), causing many schools to have to "squeeze" the strength of existing teachers to ensure the teaching program.

At Quynh Phuong Secondary School, according to the Ministry of Education and Training, the number of teachers required is 73, but currently there are only 53, a shortage of 20 teachers. To fill this gap, the school must arrange for teachers to teach other subjects besides their major and must teach extra lessons.

"According to the current regulations, teachers teach 19 periods per week, but because there is a shortage of teachers, we have to mobilize teachers to teach extra periods and many teachers have to teach 25-26 periods per week. Although it is very difficult, teachers are all responsible, but the difficulty is that the school does not know where to get money to pay teachers for these extra periods," said Mr. Ho Tuan Anh, the school's principal.

Mr. Thai Van Thanh, Director of the Nghe An Department of Education and Training, said that the arrangement of teachers is currently inadequate, leading to schools having excess teachers and schools lacking teachers. In the immediate future, the department has asked schools to review their teaching staff to have a reasonable transfer plan to reduce the workload for schools that are lacking too many teachers.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/thieu-phong-hoc-sinh-phai-lam-bai-thi-o-nha-de-xe-185250202222627659.htm