Students during a listening and speaking period at the Hà Nội University. — VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Tùng

HÀ NỘI — As the centre of politics, education, culture, science and technology, in the country’s context of industrialisation and modernisation, high-quality human resources development is seen as key to Hà Nội's future.

The capital’s education and training sector has developed in both scale and quality, better meeting people's learning needs. Effectively implementing the school network planning project, in 2016-20, many measures have been conducted to build, renovate and repair school facilities.

To date, Hà Nội has basically ensured that each commune, ward and town has at least one public kindergarten, one public primary school and one public junior high school. The city newly built and renovated 1,362 schools at all levels and exceeded the target that it will have 509 public schools by this year.

Among the achievements of the capital’s education and training sector, Hà Nội consistently leads the country in terms of sending excellent students to national and international competitions.

From 10 awards and medals in international Olympiad exams and 138 prizes for selecting national excellent students in the school year 2013-14, in the school year 2019-2020, Hà Nội students achieved a total of 338 international awards and medals, including 88 gold medals, 105 silver medals, 111 bronze medals and 34 consolation prizes.

Hà Nội also leads the country in the National Exam for Excellent Students with 144 prizes, including 15 first prizes.

In international exams in 2019, Hà Nội students joined the Vietnamese delegation and for the first time got a perfect score in the practice exam of the International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO). Hà Nội students representing Vietnamese students in the International Mathematics and Science Olympiads for under-13-year-old students and won the first prize collective with 15 gold medals, 14 silver medals and seven bronze medals.

Director of the Hà Nội Department of Education and Training Chử Xuân Dũng said that besides the achievements, the capital still had to narrow the quality gap in education between regions.

This was not a small challenge because Hà Nội’s education system was large and economic and social conditions were quite different among localities, he said.

Building high-quality human resources

To build high-quality human resources for the capital and country, Hà Nội’s education and training sector is focusing on training quality teachers and administrators.

Policies for education are always given priority and funding for training has increased, focusing on attracting, training and fostering young talents and high-quality human resources.

The local education sector has enhanced its international co-operation, making Hà Nội the first and only locality in the country to date to host international exams, an important step in integration work.

The Hanoi Open Mathematics Competition (HOMC) 2018 featured nine participating countries and in 2019 there were 13. Hà Nội also hosted the International Maths and Science Olympiad (IMSO) for under-13-year-old students in 2019, attracting 352 candidates and 215 international experts, teachers and observers from 24 countries and regions.

In terms of attracting foreign investment in education, in the school year 2013-14, Hà Nội had only 29 foreign investment projects, but now, the whole city has 77 educational projects with investment capital. — VNS