LookAtVietnam – Only 20 percent of total students have rooms in dormitories of their educational institutions, while the other 80 percent have to live in rooms they rent themselves.

Only 20 percent of total students have rooms in dormitories of their educational institutions

Only 20 percent of students can live in dormitories, while others have to live in rented rooms with poor conditions, unfavourable for studying.

In HCM City, there are 70 universities and junior colleges in which 328,475 students are studying, and 70 percent of them (230,000 students) come from other provinces and cities. However, the city only has 64 dormitories with 5,230 rooms, enough for 39,000 students, or 17 percent of total students who have a demand for accommodations.

In Hanoi, there are 126 training establishments: 59 universities, academies, 28 junior colleges and 39 vocational schools. There are 384,351 students following regular training, accounting for 25 percent of all students in the country.

Most of the existing dormitories in the city were built in 1960s and 1970s and are dilapidated. The dormitory system now can meet the demand of just 18 percent of students and the serious shortage of dormitories for students has become a big problem in the city.

The Prime Minister has set up some policies to put aside accommodations for students to lease and decided to use 8 trillion dong from Government bonds to build dormitories for students in 2009 and 2010.

The Government has instructed local authorities to check and adjust urban programming if necessary, and to reserve land for building dormitories, emphasising that this is one of the most important goals of socio-economic development in localities.

However, to date, only three of 267 registered projects have been kicked off.

Explaining the tardiness in the projects’ implementation, the Ministry of Construction said that the capital from the Government bonds had not been disbursed yet and would not be disbursed until the disbursement was approved by the National Assembly.

Moreover, some big cities and provinces, especially Hanoi and HCM City, are now experiencing problems in allocating land for the building of dormitories.

Concerned agencies and training establishments still do not know where dormitories will be built.

However, projects on building dormitories will be sped up in the time to come, as Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan, during a recent working session with the Ministries of Construction, Education and Training, Finance and Natural Resources and the Environment, said that all projects must be started no later than March 2010.

“The capital is ready, ‘clean’ land has been allocated, the mechanism is open. Therefore, project implementation must not be delayed,” Nhan said.

Deputy Minister of Construction Nguyen Tran Nam said that his ministry has submitted to the Prime Minister a list of dormitory projects to be built with capital from Government bonds for approval. Right after the Prime Minister approves the capital plan and list of projects, capital will be allocated to localities, so that projects can be started at the end of 2009.

VietNamNet/TBKTVN