Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) provinces would upgrade
educational facilities to improve school attendance rates, especially for ethnic
minorities, the Ministry of Education and Training said Wednesday.

Students at Chu Se Boarding School in the Central Highland province of Gia Lai take part in a chemistry experiment. More upgrades will be made to the region’s educational facilities to attract more children. (Photo: VNS)

The
Ministry would invest in more nurseries and kindergartens, particularly in
ethnic minorities villages to cater for 12 per cent of under three-year-olds and
85 per cent of three to five-year-olds respectively by 2015.

Semi-boarding schools in rural areas would be built with the target of 99 per
cent of children aged six, entering first grade and 55 per cent enrollments at
high schools, it was disclosed at Wednesday’s HCM City conference to review
education in the Central Highlands.

The
objectives were to increase the rate of ethnic minorities at schools from
nursery to university.

All
districts and communes in the Central Highlands provinces will have enough
continuing education centres and 90 wards and towns have community learning
centres to achieve 96 per cent literacy rates for people aged 15 and more.

Each
province in the Central Highlands would have at least one vocational college and
each district have a vocational centre to increase the rate of trained-workers
to 35 per cent by 2015.

Ethnic
minority children would have better access to Vietnamese language learning.

Research
for practical policy making is a priority to develop Central Highlands education
and attract teachers to those provinces, the conference heard.

Deputy
Minister of Education Tran Quang Quy said education and vocational training in
the Central Highland provinces had improved in the last five years.

The
drop-out rate decreased from 1.25 per cent in the 2007-08 academic year to 0.7
per cent in the 2009-10 school year, he said adding it was the biggest dropout
reduction in the country. In the last five years, the ministry built learning
centres in 70 districts and worked with local authorities to open 600 more
community learning centres to prevent illiteracy, Quy said.

Tran Duy
Tao, head of the School Infrastructure and Equipment Department, said more than
3,500 new classrooms and 1,936 rooms for teachers in the region were built
between 2008 and 2010 and VND267 billion (US$12.8 million) was spent on teaching
equipment.

One
hundred communes were still in need of kindergartens and 4,700 teachers were
needed at all levels, he added.

VietNamNet/Viet
Nam News