LookAtVietnam – A lot of non-state high schools are weeping because they cannot enroll enough students as state-owned schools lured most already.

Nguyen Sieu People-founded School is one of the non-state high schools in Hanoi well known for collecting high tuition fees and requiring high marks on the high school entrance exams.

Students had to get 42 points on this year’s school entrance exam in order to be able to study at the school, a score which is usually required by middle-class schools. However, it has still only been able to enroll 62 percent of the number of projected students.

However, the ‘poor crop’ of Nguyen Sieu School is still the wish of many other non-state high schools. A lot of schools have opened their doors wide to students, but only few students have entered. Some of them have set very easy conditions for form’s sake, while in fact, they accept any applicant.

Dong Da High School at first announced the required mark at 35, but it since has lowered the required mark to 30. The lower mark has helped the school enroll 390 students, but the number is still 60 students short of the enrolment goal.

However, the schools in the former Ha Tay province seem to be the most miserable because of lacking students.

Chuong My district in the former Ha Tay province has two private-run high schools, Ngo Si Lien and Dang Tien Dong, which planned to enroll 450 students for 10 classes and 360 students for eight classes, respectively.

However, to date, Ngo Si Lien School has opened just five classes with 200 students, and Dang Tien Dong, just two classes with 90 students.

Lacking students, an anticipated thing

“We have no more students to enroll,” said Headmaster of Ngo Si Lien High School in Chuong My district Nguyen Huy Chuyen, adding that the tuition fee of the school is the lowest among non-state schools in the former Ha Tay province, 130,000 dong per month, while the material facilities are very good.

Headmasters of other schools also said that they anticipated a lack of students to enroll, since the Hanoi Education and Training Department allocated the enrolment quotas for state and non-state schools.

In the old Hanoi area, 24 state-owned schools have been allocated 2,250 seats, or 1/8 of the total seats allocated to non-state schools in 2009-2010 school year.

Deputy Headmaster of Dong Kinh School Tran Thi Tam said that the school has enrolled 100 students only while it planned to have 270 for 10^th grade classes. Meanwhile, Dong Kinh is located in a ‘golden land plot’ in Hoang Mai district, where there are few non-state schools.

Meanwhile, the total number of students the three state-owned schools in Hoang Mai district have enrolled this year (Truong Dinh, Hoang Van Thu, Vietnam-Poland) is 2,070, or 315 more than last year.

Chuyen from Ngo Si Lien said that as state-owned schools have attracted all students, very few students have applied for non-state schools. Meanwhile, three vocational schools and two colleges which have vocational training programmes have also lured students who have completed secondary school.

Headmaster of Dang Tien Dong High School Nguyen Huy Khanh said that his school has been facing big difficulties in enrolling students since Ha Tay became a part of Hanoi.

“State-owned schools have lowered required marks and increased the number of students, creating big difficulties for us,” Khanh said. “Many students, who applied for studying at our school, left us after they heard that state-owned schools lowered their required marks.

“The education and training department needs to have a more reasonable method of allocating quotas next year, or we will die,” he said.

VietNamNet/TP