The mushrooming of private pre-schools in Ho Chi Minh City is causing major difficulties for the education sector and local government as authorities struggle to ensure the facilities’ standards are being maintained.
Pre-school education is a major concern for parents in the city, but due to severe overcrowding, many children cannot be accommodated by public schools. Instead, their parents are forced to turn to private ones, which also suffer from overcrowding and a lack of staff.
Nearly every year, the number of children seeking admission to pre-schools in HCMC surges. The private pre-school Gau Trang (White Bear) in District 12 is overcrowded with more than 35 children to a small room on average, despite Government regulations that stipulate no more than 15 children should be assigned to a room.
Despite the enormous number of children, there is often only one teacher and an assistant in charge of the whole group.
HCMC’s District 12 has 89 private pre-schools, among which 33 do not meet standards due to overcrowding and a lack of teachers.
There has also been an explosion of private pre-schools in districts Binh Tan, Thu Duc and Binh Thanh.
Ms. Do Thi Giang, deputy head of Binh Tan District’s Education and Training Department, said the department has received loads of applications to open private pre-schools. Officials must visit the facilities to ensure they meet standards, which they usually do on the first occasion. However, the schools often fail on follow-up inspections.
Studies conducted by local government agencies show that over 60 percent of pre-school-aged children are sent to such facilities as their parents have no other options.
As many schools are already over double their capacity, some children have no access to pre-school education at all. In addition, despite HCMC’s impressive size and the fact that it is a key social and economic hub in the country, 15 city wards have no pre-schools at all.
Moreover, it means that parents often cannot work as they have to stay home with their children.
Due to a lack of supervision and safe infrastructure, several accidents have also occurred at private pre-schools. Nguyen Thi Kim Thanh, head of the Pre-school Education Division of the city’s Department of Education and Training, said any pre-schools found lacking minimum requirements to secure children’s safety would be shut down.
Parents and officials alike say that the city People’s Committee should force investors to build more pre-schools to ensure children’s education and safety.
