Kids join a reading session at a private kindergarten in Da Nang city. The beach city will provide free schooling for all students from kindergarten to high school in 2023-24. (Photo courtesy of Phuong Chi) The decision was ratified at the council's working session earlierthis week, making it the only city in Vietnam to offer free education for allstudents this year.
It’s the third year the central city has applied subsidies to fundeducation, with the goal being to ease the financial burden caused by COVID-19in 2020-2022.
The city’s People’s Council said free education would apply to allstate-owned and private schools in the city, but not to foreign-invested ones.
Each student had to pay a monthly school fee from 50,000 to300,000 VND in previous years, but they will be offered a nine-month term freefor the 2023-2024 school year.
The city's budget will provide 316 billion VND for state-ownedschools and 92 billion VND for private schools.
The central city was also the first in Vietnam to hold a pilotproject on caring for babies from six to 18 months at 21 public kindergartensas preparation for the city’s social-security master plan for 2020-2025.
A number of foreign-invested kindergartens are operating in thecity providing services for expats and those looking for internationalcurriculums.
The city, in cooperation with the American Half the SkyFoundation, opened the One Sky kindergarten at the Hoa Khanh Industrial Zone,the first care centre and kindergarten for children aged from six months to sixyears.
The Japanese JP Holdings Group also operated the Japanese-ledCOHAS Da Nang, or Smile School, for children ages one to six, while Leave aNest, an education organisation from Japan, with the Self Wing Vietnam Company,launched a project on nature research and education for students at secondaryschools in the city.
At the meeting, Da Nang authorities also proposed a fund of 670billion VND to upgrade the March 29 Park, which has long been polluted, in2023-2026.
The park will be designed as a core green zone in the plan for asmart city by 2030./.
VNA
