Deputy Chairwoman of the Hanoi People’s Committee Ngo Thi Thanh Hang, when answering a question by the city’s People’s Council late last week, acknowledged that Hanoi is now seriously lacking state-owned nursery schools.

Under the current regulations, resettlement and urban areas all have to reserve land for schools. However, in reality, schools are still lacking in many wards and districts.

The serious shortage of schools, all nursery schools, primary and secondary schools, is now a matter of grave concern to the Hanoi City’s People’s Council. Nguyen Thi An, a member of the council, has asked that it be clarified if real estate developers have to make commitments to the city’s authorities about the building of social infrastructure items. She said that social infrastructure, like schools and entertainment complexes, should be put up first. Meanwhile, in many places in Hanoi, beautiful buildings arise first, and schools are built later, or not at all.

“Does the city’s People’s Committee know about this? What has it done to deal with the problem,” An questioned.

In response, Hang said that urban area development projects always include social infrastructure items, and she blamed the lack of schools on investors, who, according to Hang, are not aware of their responsibilities and duties in the cause of educational development.

Hang said that city authorities have asked concerned agencies to check the school systems in urban areas, adding that she herself does not know how many urban areas have schools.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Chairman of the Hanoi People’s Council said that the Hanoi People’s Committee in 2007 promised to check the school system. “After two years the investigation is still not finished? When will children have schools?” he asked.

Chairwoman of the Hanoi People’s Council Ngo Thi Doan Thanh said that the school network development programming should be linked with the land fund programming. Meanwhile, there is only a school plan and it is unclear regarding which parcels of land schools will be built on.

Thanh said that in some wards, schools still have not been built, even though they were projected six years ago, in 2003.

She also said that the city’s authorities have not paid reasonable attention to the population. Hanoi is striving to have one nursery school, one primary school and one secondary school in every ward, while no one has recognised that wards with higher populations will need more schools than the wards with lower numbers of local residents.

VietNamNet/TTVH