Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training Nguyen Van Hieu speaks at the meeting (Photo: SGGP)
Before the prolonged epidemic, teaching is undertaken remotely and on the digital platform. Director of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City Nguyen Van Hieu said that the education sector proposed to extend the tuition fee collection. Specifically, schools will not collect tuition fees for the first semester to support difficulties for parents and students from preschool to high school.
At the second meeting of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council, term 2021-2026 on August 24, Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training Nguyen Van Hieu reported the results of the 2020-2021 academic year and the preparation for the new school year 2021- 2022.
According to him, approximately additional 30,939 students will apply for schools in the school year 2021-2022. In which, primary schools will see an increase of 31,517 students, mostly in Thu Duc city and districts 12, Binh Tan, Go Vap, Binh Chanh, and Hoc Mon because of rapid urbanization and high mechanical population growth.
The education authorities in localities where the number of students is expected to increase significantly planned to build more new classrooms, especially at primary schools. Thereby, all of the children of Ho Chi Minh City can attend classes.
By July 2021, Ho Chi Minh City only has 293 classrooms per ten thousand people of school age from 3 to 18 years old. However, due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, school construction projects have been suspended, some non-public schools have shut down. In the past two years, no more high schools have been built whereas preschool educational institutions have decreased while in prior years, non-public schools increased by more than 10 percent every year.
According to Mr. Hieu, the construction progress of school works is slow in 2020 and 2021. Worse, due to social distancing rule, all school construction projects were delayed while preschools have been closed. The Department of Education and Training has also coordinated with relevant departments to issue guidance on exemption and reduction of tuition fees and support for school expenses for students and free lunch for children for the school year 2021 - 2022 and to the school year 2025 - 2026.
However, the prolonged epidemic has forced schools to conduct teaching on the internet. Mr. Hieu informed that 249 schools have been used to be isolation facilities and 453 other schools have been used as venues for testing and vaccination. More terribly, around 2,000 teachers and 6,000 are Covid-19 infected patients and contacts F1.
Director Hieu said another problem in the school year is the supply of textbooks the Department has guided parents to register schools to receive textbooks. The online version of textbooks has been launched in the internet, parents can download it for their children.
The education sector and the city Television have worked together to broadcast virtual teaching on television in early September 2021.
