Tran Duc Hoc, Chairman of the People’s Committee of Dong Da District in Hanoi has promised to find vacant land for construction of pre-schools, as four wards in the district have no nursery school and parents are becoming increasingly concerned for their children.
The Chairman stated this at a meeting yesterday with the Education Commission of the Hanoi City Party Committee.
Justifying the lack of daycare facilities in the district, Hoc said that earlier the government had set regulations for the local administration to ask for social contributions in building a pre-school and not to use the state budget for this purpose.
At that time, every household in the district was extremely impoverished and unable to contribute towards the building of educational institutes. Subsequently, the government handed out vacant land to enterprises on leasehold basis.
The Education law stipulates that each ward having a minimum population of 8,000-10,000 residents must have at least one pre-school or primary school, however now no vacant land is available for the purpose, Hoc added.
Hoc is now suggesting resolving the problem by proposing to the Hanoi People’s Committee to reclaim land leased out to manufacturers earlier.
In addition, Hanoi could also ask the Ministry of Defence, to return the 3,000 square meter land that has an existing school, built in 1991.
Lack of pre-schools in the suburban districts of Hanoi has caused grave concern amongst residents who have to transport their children to very far off schools daily.