VietNamNet Bridge – Some universities in Vietnam are employing harsh measures to ban smoking on their campuses. Students of the HCM City University of Technology will be expelled while employees will be fired if they are found smoking.

Students of the Public Health University dispensing information about the harmful effects of cigarettes.

This stern rule has helped the HCM City University of Technology become one of the three non-smoking universities of the total number of over 200 universities and colleges in Vietnam.

The two other schools which say “No” to smoking are the Hanoi-based Public Health University and the People’s Police Vocational School.

Deputy Director of the HCM City University of Technology, Van Du, said the most important factor in abolishing cigarettes from this university was the university’s determination.

Du said that prior to 1995, the university banned smoking on its campus but many students and even lecturers still smoked in corridors or canteens. However, a small fire caused by a cigarette at the university’s library in August 1999 changed the situation. Both lecturers and students realised the harm of smoking and they were determined to reject smoking from their school.

The university set up a team of students who were in charge of informing each student about the harms of smoking and the school’s ban on smoking. It also issued strict sanctions on smokers. Accordingly, students caught in the act while smoking would be expelled from the school while lecturers and other employees would be fired. The school also announced it would not welcome guests who smoke.

Some lecturers asked the Management Board to open a room for smokers but they were refused. Since June 2005, the HCM City University for Technology has been a non-smoking school.

The Hanoi-based Public Health University applies other methods. Accordingly, anyone who smokes on the school’s campus is fined VND100,000 (US$6). The school has a special team and a club that campaigns for students to say “No” to smoking.

Director of the Public Health University, Dr. Le Vu Anh, said a non-smoking school must be not only a school which has “no smoking” banners and posters, but also a place where students and lecturers don’t smoke and “fear” cigarettes and their harmful effects.

According to the Public Health Association, the Ministry of Education and Training began to build the model of non-smoking schools. However, this project was ineffective because most schools announced they would ban smoking but they didn’t take measures to enforce the ban.

Based on the success of the three above schools, the model of the “non-smoking school” will be expanded to many other universities and colleges in Vietnam.

(Source: VNE)