Every university just covers an area of some thousands of square meters, or some hundreds of square meters. Therefore, educators have every reason to worry about the quality of the pedagogical environment.

 

Being one of the biggest universities in Hanoi, the University for Civil Engineering has an advantageous location in the city. However, immediately after passing through the main entrance, one would feel claustrophobic because the only space left in the school is a small concrete courtyard which in reality is too small to be the main campus of a university. With a total area of 38,000 square meters, the university now has the average area of 2.2 square meters per student.

Located not far away from the University for Civil Engineering, the Hanoi Open University is even more cramped. Everything is confined to only one building, clearly not enough space for functional rooms. If looking into the university from the outside, no one would imagine this is a university, because the building has been extended in different directions and now looks like an old apartment bloc with a narrow yard. The faculty of the university are forced to rent rooms in other localities to set up classrooms.

The Hanoi University for Foreign Trade now has two more new buildings with standard lecture halls and libraries. However, in order to have these new things the school compromised its yard for students to practice sports. The university now has the average land area of 2.3 square meters per student only.

This is also the situation of many other universities in Hanoi. Very few schools have an area of more than 10 hectares and still have idle land for construction. The schools can set up new buildings to increase the area of function rooms, but in return, they will lose the area for other necessary things. The football ground of the Hanoi National University has been used to build new lecture halls. Therefore, students do not have many places to practice sports and for outdoor activities.

The HCM City Economics University has six campuses, but all of them are small. The smallest campus, in Phu Nhuan district, where six classrooms and some other function rooms are located, covers an area of 520 square meters. The largest campus, in district 10, covers an area of 55,000 square meters with 51 classrooms. Meanwhile, the school now has 41,000 students in total.

In HCM City, the Hong Bang University now holds the record as the school with the highest number of campuses. Most of the 10 campuses of the school are small and cannot meet the requirements to provide university training.

The Van Hien University still does not have official campuses, while its classrooms are rented in different localities. The school now has four campuses in Districts 4, 12, Phu Nhuan and Tan Binh. Nguyen Mong Hung, President of the school, said that every year the school has to spend 7 billion dong to rent the four campuses. The campus locations in different localities are big difficulties for the management and teaching arrangement.

Meanwhile, according to Dr Nguyen Ngoc Dinh, Deputy President of the HCM City Economics University, in addition to six existing campuses, the school has to rent more classrooms at the HCM City Economics Junior College and the Bach Viet Junior College to teach students in the evening, and rent Phu Tho and Phan Dinh Phung stadium for physical education classes.

Most of the universities in Vietnam do not have an area big enough to meet the standards set by the Ministry of Education and Training (55-85 square meters per student). The reports released by 32 universities and junior colleges in the inner HCM City show that the total land area covered by the schools is 256.2 hectares. 17 out of 32 schools only have 0.4-9 square meters per student. The HCM City University of Education has 0.44 square meters per student, Huflit 0.46 square meters per student, and Hong Bang University 0.51 squares meters per student.

Source: Tuoi tre