LookAtVietnam – Hundreds of students at the Saigonact are protesting against the college’s decision to force them to learn in places with overly poor conditions.

The classrooms at campus No 5 in Hoc Mon district also look like workshops. It seems to be cooler here than campus 4. However, students have to deal with the adjacent smelly black canal.

He said that Economics students have opposed the college’s decision that their classes are now at campus No 5 in Ba Diem commune in Hoc Mon district in HCM City. This is eight kilometers from the college headquarters and far from the city centre.

Son said the college decided to ask students to go to campus No 5 because it thought this would be better for them. Currently, students are studying at campus No 4 beneath hot metal roofing classrooms.

The headquarter of the college is located at No 83 Phan Huy Ich Road, behind a lot of tea shops and café. The campus No 4 is 200 metres away from the headquarters, where lecture halls look like workshops. With metal roofing, it is always very hot inside classrooms, though electric fans are turned on all day.

The lecture halls which can contain hundreds of students are located next to each others. Students here joke that these are the ‘parking areas’.

Campus No 3 is thirty minute motorbike drive from the headquarter, in Go Vap district. The place, reserved for training foreign language students, is also a restaurant which serves wedding parties, called ‘Vuon Hong’ (Rose Garden). Everyday, students have to show student cards to be able to enter Vuon Hong restaurant. The rooms designed for wedding parties have been serving as lecture halls since 2006.

There are four to six square pillars in every such lecture hall which block the views of students. As the lecture halls are too large, lecturers have to talk via microphones. However, there are only several microphones and classes had to scramble for them.

Despite the poor conditions, students still have to pay the high tuition of 5.5 million dong per annum.

The classrooms at campus No 5 in Hoc Mon district also look like workshops. It seems to be cooler here than campus 4. However, students have to deal with the adjacent smelly black canal.

Regarding the qualification of lecturers, especially foreign language lecturers, the students here say some of the lecturers have qualifications only a little higher than learners.

Chairman of the college Vu Khac Chuong has admitted the poor conditions of the college and promised the situation will be improved in the near future.

However, as yet there is no time frame for future investment.

VietNamNet/VNE, DT