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A big class in Binh Chanh outlying district's Vinh Loc A Commune |
On average, the southern largest city puts into use 1,000-1,500 new classrooms each year following the city People's Committee’s planning scheme for the school network. However, in the face of the pressure of rapid urbanization, while the construction of schools and classrooms is still inadequate leading to overcrowding of schools, many places maintain big classes with over 50 students per class.
According to the school network planning scheme of Tan Binh District’s Ward 15, the district will build a cluster of schools including Phan Huy Ich Primary School, Tran Thai Tong Secondary School, and a secondary school in the land of the water plant and Tan Son High School.
Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Ward 15 Nguyen Tat Hai said that after nearly 20 years of planning, the district has not started building a new school because of difficulties in land acquisition, site clearance, compensation payment and support for households.
According to Mr. Nguyen Tat Hai, suspended projects are mentioned at annual dialogues with residents in the ward held by the People's Committee and the ward Fatherland Front Committee. Tan Binh district had many working sessions with 81 households affected by school construction projects, but because the residential land price coefficient for compensation payment for households was too low, they did not agree.
Hence, to remove difficulties and speed up the construction of schools in the project cluster, the District People's Committee assigned the Tan Binh Area Compensation and Clearance Committee to hire a consultancy company to continue collecting information on agricultural land transactions in the district and neighboring districts for appropriate handling. Currently, Tan Binh district has registered medium-term public investment capital for the period of 2021-2025 to implement this project cluster.
Because there is no secondary school in Ward 15, students have to apply for secondary schools in the other ward. Teacher Ton That Nhan Hieu, Principal of Hoang Hoa Tham Secondary School in Ward 13 said that the school was newly built with 45 classrooms and full functional rooms in an area of nearly 13,000 square meters. However, since its inauguration and put into use, every year the school has to admit students in Ward 15 and students in Ward 12 and Ward 14; therefore, the school has big classes.
Similarly, the new construction project of Ernst Thälmann High School in District 1 has been suspended for nearly 17 years and no one can say when the project can be started. The school currently with a campus area of about 6,000 square meters has been built for a long time, so it is seriously degraded. Though the city each year allocated capital for the school’s leak prevention, the classrooms are still damp and dim.
Regarding the new construction project of Ernst Thälmann High School, a representative of the Department of Planning and Finance under the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training said that in 2007, the city held an auction of the "golden triangle" area including streets Tran Hung Dao - Pham Ngu Lao. - Nguyen Thai Hoc in District 1 with a total area of about 13,000 square meters. Because Ernst Thälmann High School is located in the auction area, the city has plans to move the school to another place. By 2009, Ernst Thälmann High School was planning to move to a plot of land located on Ben Chuong Duong Street in District 1. However, this land is too small to build a national standard school. Since then, the new construction project of Ernst Thälmann High School has stagnated.
Vice Chairwoman of Go Vap District People's Committee Dao Thi My Thu said that in 2021, the district had more than 690,000 people. The district set a target by 2025 to complete the target of 300 classrooms/10,000 people of school age.
However, currently, there is not much vacant land, land for factories and production facilities managed by the State in the district, so the locality has to plan schools at residential land locations managed by households and individuals to ensure the land fund for education.
Meanwhile, the current regulations on compensation payment and site clearance have a large gap between the land in the school planning area and the housing planning area, leading to households disagreement; thus, the school construction project can’t be carried out.
In suburban areas, the lack of schools and overcrowded schools are a headache for local administrations. District 12, Binh Tan, Binh Chanh and Hoc Mon are under a lot of pressure in mechanical population growth, yet many projects to build new schools and classes cannot be carried out because of lack of capital and problems of compensation payment for site clearance.
Three communes of Binh Chanh outlying district including Vinh Loc A with nearly 170,000 residents, Vinh Loc B with over 146,000 population and Pham Van Hai with about 40,000 people are the localities that saw a severe shortage of schools and large size classes. The number of primary and secondary school students in these three communes is nearly 33,000, but there are only 10 primary schools and 5 public secondary schools. Schools must renovate functional rooms into classrooms to receive all students.
Vice Chairman of Hoc Mon District People's Committee Le Thuy My Chau said that the locality has only reached the rate of 211 rooms/10,000 people. As per schedule, from 2020 to 2025, the district had 16 new school projects, but so far, only 7 schools have been deployed. In addition, in the medium-term public investment plan for the 2021-2025 period, the district has 17 school construction projects, but no capital has been so far recorded.
Faced with this fact, Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training Le Hoai Nam proposed Thu Duc City and 21 districts prioritize allocating budget capital to speed up the implementation of school construction investment projects according to the approval of land use plan and master plan with a focus on areas with high mechanical population growth or areas with industrial parks and export processing zones such as districts 7, 9, 12, Binh Tan, Go Vap, Thu Duc and Binh Chanh.
According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training’s statistics, by the end of December, the city had 117 education projects that were delayed due to many reasons. In addition, Vice Chairman of the municipal People's Committee Duong Anh Duc said that districts have unequally implemented the goal of 300 classrooms per 10,000 population of school age from 3-18 years old among grades. Some localities have completed the set targets, but the rate in some districts is still very low. This shows district administrations have not paid full attention to the implementation of the goal.
