Vietnam has been calling for pre-school education
socialization. However, over the last many years, since the socialization began,
no good choices of schools are available to people with low income

State owned schools cannot provide enough places

In the decision to socialize pre-school education released in 2005, the Ministry
of Education and Training said that Vietnam encourages establishment of people
founded and private run nursery schools in cities, and that in the future, 70-80
percent of children will go to non-state nursery schools.

Le Thi Dung, a National Assembly’s Deputy from An Giang province, has pointed
out that many problems have been found in pre-school education. For a long time,
Vietnam has been relying heavily on the socialization, i.e. it has been calling
on different economic sectors to spend money to build nursery schools.

According to Dung, mothers have to go back to work four months after they give
birth, which means they have to spend a lot of money sending their children to
nursery schools, while they do not get any allowances from the state.

“The state has been spending little money on pre-school education,” Dung
concluded.

The model of education socialization has made regular employees worried.
According to Nguyen Thi Hong Nga, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Education and
Training Department, previously, 80 percent of urban nursery schools were
non-state schools. However, regular workers cannot afford high fees. After that,
the city decided to change semi-state owned nursery schools into state owned
schools, so as to provide more places at low fees. However, the current number
of operational state owned nursery schools remains very modest and still cannot
meet the demand. A lot of parents still have to send their children to household
or private run schools, even when they do not know if they are licensed or not.
But they have no other choice.

In the 2009-2010 academic year, 37 new nursery schools were established,
including 14 state owned schools and 23 private schools. It is estimated that
14.5 percent of children at the kindergarten age and nearly 80 percent of
children at the nursery school age have not been taken care of and educated in
licensed schools. In the inner city, six wards in Hai Ba Trung and Dong Da
Districts still do not have state owned nursery schools. The reports released by
state agencies show that Hanoi lacks 700,000 square metre of land for nursery
schools.

Pre-school education socialization a good solution?

Nguyen Tung Lam, Chair of the Hanoi Psychology Association said that Vietnam
should have been investing more in pre-school education. Meanwhile, pre-school
education has been floated. Instead, Vietnam should have called for
socialization in higher education levels, such as high school or university

According to Lam, secondary school graduates have many choices, either they
continue their studies or go to vocational schools. Meanwhile, as for pre-school
education, society needs to take care of children in the best possible
conditions.

Why do parents still have to send their children to schools which require high
fees, or to the places with questionable education quality?

Lam calls this a “very unreasonable adventure”.

Source: Tien phong