This summer is a difficult one for many parents of kindergarten-age children as they have to run the gauntlet to secure seats for their children for the coming school year.

The parents wait to purchase application forms to register their children for the kindergarten

Significantly, application forms were not going to go on sale until the next morning at 8am.

The kindergarten plans to enroll 40 children who were born in 2007, while the number of children in the ward born in that year is much higher.

“We have been here since 5pm,” said Thanh, 30, the mother of a child entering kindergarten this year. “We just had time to have a quick dinner and then we rushed to the kindergarten to join the long queue.”

“If I bring my child to a private school, I will have to pay 2 million dong a month for tuition, which we cannot afford,” another mother said. “I’m afraid I will not be able to purchase an application form because there are too many people,” she added.

At 7 am, when a security guard of the kindergarten opened the door, hundreds of parents flocked into the kindergarten. Application forms sold out within a few minutes.

A lot of parents left empty-handed. Some said that they would have to ask grandparents to watch their children for them or have to send children to household-run classes. One mother said that she was worried about the quality of household-run classes, but she had no other choice.

Performing everywhere

What was seen at October 10 Kindergarten took place at other kindergartens in Hanoi as well. A lot of parents missed a night of sleep to queue for the precious application forms.

Nguyen Thi Bau, Headmaster of Tuoi Hoa Kindergarten, said that ever year Lang Ha ward has 500 children who need to go to kindergarten, while the number of kindergartens is limited and the number of seats in kindergartens is limited.

“I wish that urban area programmers would pay more attention to developing schools while they are building more and more high-rises,” she said.

Tuoi Hoa kindergarten only has 11 classes. Her kindergarten has asked the Dong Da district People’s Committee to extend the kindergarten to prepare for the universalisation of pre-school education for 5-year old children.

But while parents still have to line-dance in order to get their kindergarten-age children into school, universalisation of pre-school education doesn’t seem to be just a drop-step away.

VietNamNet/VNE