Ho Chi Minh City is failing to address the worsening shortage of kindergartens and daycare centers.

Children play at Ho Chi Minh City-based Ben Thanh Kindergarten.

The number of preschoolers keeps rising in Ho Chi Minh City, yet the number of kindergartens and daycare centers remains woefully inadequate, and the gap is growing.

This year the city has enrolled 266,176 preschoolers, according to preliminary statistics, up by more than 12,000 from last year, says Nguyen Thi Kim Thanh, head of preschool education at the HCMC Department of Education and Training.

However, the existing public preschools only have enough places for half this number at best, and often have to extend class sizes to admit as many students as possible.

Many schools designated “national standard” like May 19th, Ben Thanh, and April 30th have nearly twice as many pupils as they are meant to handle. Some classes have up to 60 pupils, whereas the regulated limit is 35.

Many of the city’s public schools, furthermore, will start up kindergarten classes for five-year-old children from this year as priority in accordance with the requirement by the Ministry of Education and Training, Thanh says.

While Vietnam’s preschools often take children barely 18 months old, last year the education ministry said the age limit should be reduced to three months.

If this happens, parents will find it harder than ever to get their children into any kind of preschool.

“Many children will not be able to go to school or will have to attend private school next school year, that’s for sure,” says Thanh.

Ta Thi Thanh An, principal of the private Hanh Dung Kindergarten in Phu Nhuan District, says parents often turn to the private sector when they fail to get their children into a public preschool, so the private establishments are overcrowded too.

Her preschool will open a branch this year, but it will be able to enroll fewer than 200 children.

In Binh Tan, Binh Thanh and other districts of the city, family-run daycare centers look after 300 kids apiece, while the regulations only allow for 100 children at most.

Compounding the problem is the fact that quite a few private kindergartens and daycare centers fall well short of the mark in terms of caring for and educating their young charges.

Nguyen Tien Dat, deputy director of the HCMC Department of Education and Training, says many preschoolers end up going to substandard kindergartens, to their great disadvantage.

He says that the slow pace of building more public preschools is partly spelling the trouble.

A good example lies 10 kilometers from the city center in Hoc Mon District, which has over 15,000 children of preschool age, an increase of more than 2,400 in just one year.

Yet all the district has to accommodate this number is 16 public and 11 private kindergartens along with 64 family-run daycare centers. Unsurprisingly, most of the kindergartens in Hoc Mon have 50-60 kids a class.

Tran Thi Long, vice chairwoman of Hoc Mon’s Propaganda and Education Committee, says all plans to establish more preschools in the district were put on hold last year because of the spiraling costs.

The situation is almost as dire in Thu Duc District, which has seen an increase of more than 1,000 preschoolers this year but can only enroll between 300 and 500 new pupils as no new public school has been built in ages.

In Tan Phu District, plans to build three public schools have been sitting in limbo for a long time because the sites have yet to be cleared, says district education director Hoang Thi Hong Hai.

Dat of the HCMC Department of Education says district authorities have been told to help family-run daycare centers raise their game in any way they can.

Those that fall far below the mark must be told to cut the number of pupils to below 100 as regulated.

Looking to the long-term, Dat says the city should urge district authorities to speed up the construction of new preschools, and seek out more private investors in preschool education.

VietNamNet/TN/SGGP