VietNamNet Bridge – Temporary structures with few facilities are now serving as classrooms in many places in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta.

In An Giang Province, Binh Phuoc Xuan Kindergarten in Cho Moi District has been using the kitchen of the Phu An Pagoda as a classroom for the last six years.

Tran Thi Truc, who was sitting flat on the ground to teach her students, said: "All 24 children aged from four to five have to learn from a curriculum meant for five-year-olds."

The class was closed every time the kitchen was used to cook for meetings or festivals at the pagoda, she added.

Another class there, this one in the hamlet’s administrative office, has to put up with the constant cacophony from a nearby market.

"The noise and vulgar language heard from the market affect the class as well as the children’s behaviour," teacher Nguyen Thi Mai said, adding that sometimes the children were told to cover their ears when there were disputes in the market.

Vo Thanh Hong, chairman of Tri Ton District’s Tan Tuyen Commune, said in Tan Lap village a resident’s house served as a kindergarten.

"Since the house is not large enough to have three classrooms for 26 children aged from three to five, they sit in the same class," said Le Thi Duyen, their teacher.

The province has 343 classrooms housed in pagodas, cultural houses, administrative offices, and people’s houses, according to the An Giang Education Department.

Nine out of 10 kindergarten classes in Binh Phuoc Xuan Commune, for instance, are housed in temporary structures.

Dong Thap Province has 453 such kindergarten classes while only 60 out of 142 communes, wards and towns in Kien Giang Province have proper kindergartens.

‘Socialising’ education, a tough task

It is hard to persuade investors to start kindergartens or primary schools in the delta , according to local education officials.

Lu Van Nhut, director of Kien Giang Province Department of Education and Training, said "socialising education" was hard in an area criss-crossed by rivers and canals while insufficient budgets meant borrowing space to run kindergartens was unavoidable.

Many private kindergartens set up at a cost of billions of dong have had to close down or cannot operate at full capacity because of a paucity of students.

Cai Dau Town in An Giang’s Chau Phu District, for instance, used to have three private kindergartens but one of them had to close down because of heavy losses.

Gia Nghi private kindergartenl, built in 2007 at a cost of VND12.7 billion (US$747,000) with 30 classes meeting national standard, is now operating at a loss.

Neglect of ‘owners of country’s future’

Professor Dr Vo Tong Xuan, senior counsellor at An Giang University, said inadequate investment in early childhood education in the province, especially in remote regions, was affecting the development of the "owners of the country’s future".

Poor education in the early years would lead to a bad foundation for further education, he warned.

Instead of giving priority to education of young children, most of the province’s efforts were put into university education, he added.

"Improvement of education should start with early education, which is the trend in developed countries," he said.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News

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