many schools in the Mekong Delta do not have enough classrooms, while students at other schools must study in dank and cramped rooms. VietNamNet Bridge – The official opening day of the new school year will come in early September. Yet many schools in the Mekong Delta do not have enough classrooms, while students at other schools must study in dank and cramped rooms filled with things lying about in disorder and in the way.

The library at Lich Hoi Thuong B school

For the new 2010-2011 school year, Soc Trang province has a new school – Thanh Tan Secondary and High School. Since construction of the school has not finished, over the last two weeks, high school seniors have to study in corrugated iron-roofed classrooms. On rainy days, it is so noisy that teachers must yell and still students cannot hear them. On sunny days, the rooms are like ovens. Adjacent classes can clearly hear their neighbor’s lectures and activities.

Tran Ngoc Loan, Deputy Headmaster of Thanh Tan Secondary and High School, reported that Thanh Tan has 28 classes with 984 students this year. Since school facilities remain very poor, the school’s managing board and all teachers must share the same room. When the school holds faculty meetings, they must use a “borrowed” room.

At Lich Hoi Thuong B Primary School in Tran De district, many classrooms have been degraded so much that authorities fear they may collapse.

Pham Huy Quang, Headmaster of Lich Hoi Thuong B School said the school has chopped down two big trees on the playground to set up six short-lived classrooms for students. The workroom of the school’s managing board and teachers is located in one of the poorest rooms. The so-called library is a cramped room with no light, where books sit dusty and unattended. No students come to read in this room with no furniture.

Phuoc Long Secondary School in Phuoc Long District in Bac Lieu province is well-known for high achievements of its teachers and students. However, the facilities of the school are very poor.

There is a row of classrooms with torn walls, and another row facing the playground full of sand, stone and steel belonging to a nearby construction site. At recess, the students must avoid pieces of sharp steel. They have even had to hold classes in rooms borrowed from adjacent Tran Van Bay High School.

There, 50 teachers and the managing board must work in the same 30 square metre room. With no soundproofing, students in class can hear everything next door. When there are music lessons, all the students hear it.

In Go Quao District in Kien Giang Province, children of Dinh An Nursery School once had to study in a cemetery. That was one year ago. Despite a lot of exertions, teachers could only borrow a room in the cemetery. Now, the school has moved to another location when an official of the cemetery management board said that the children made too much noise and had to elave. Now children study in a room borrowed from Dinh An Primary School. “The room was once a canteen, we have turned it into a classroom,” a teacher explained.

Source: Nguoi lao dong