People's committee chairman slams failure to provide schools

HA NOI (VNS)— Chairman of Ha Noi's People's Committee Nguyen The Thao has required local authorities to find out why more schools are not being constructed in urban areas where there are serious educational shortages.

Reports from the municipal People's Committee showed that there were 152 new urban areas in the city, 10 of which have been put into use. The rest are either under construction or under procedures.

Of these 10 urban areas, six do not have enough schools for residents, and some do not have any.

According to the city's scheme, each grassroot-level locality must have at least one pre-school, one primary and one secondary school that meet the national standards by 2020.

However, construction has not begun on any of the schools in My Dinh-Me Tri and Dai Kim-Dinh Cong urban areas. Phap Van-Tu Hiep, Van Quan-Yen Phuc and My Dinh 2 urban areas suffer from a shortage of schools.

In Ba Dinh, Dong Da, and Cau Giay districts, classes are frequently overloaded with more than 40 pupils.

Vice Chairwoman of the committee Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc said to Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper that these shortages were caused by a dearth of funding and mismanagement of urban land areas by local authorities.

Moreover, many investors paid little attention to the construction of social facilities in urban areas, she said.

Last March, the city authority had guided districts to promptly implement the construction of six pre-schools in six wards in the inner city, which were planned to finish by 2013. — VNS