Leaders of 63 education and training departments and a number of international organisations gathered in Hanoi on Jan. 5 to review the five-year implementation of the national education action plan.

The participants analysed reasons of success and challenges of the plan and discussed necessary solutions that would provide educational opportunities for all children, adolescents and people by 2015.

Vietnam has so far completed important educational targets including the development of a school network and the considerable increase of children attending school. Additionally, a number of educational programmes have been carried out while education management has also improved.

However, the implementation of the pre-school education programme remains a challenge as it requires a comprehensive modification in content and methods. In addition, a majority of rural and disadvantaged areas lack teachers and facilities to implement the programme.

In some regions there remains a large gap of children attending school due to the lack of facilities. The Red river provinces have only 27 percent of its total number of children in the kindergarten age group in school and 79 percent of nursery age in nurseries. The Mekong delta provinces comparatively face dire percentages with three percent of its children in kindergartens and 45 percent in nurseries.

The conference proposed to increase State budget for the action plan and nationwide endorsement of nursery education for all five-year old children. It also suggested financial assistance to improve Vietnamese instruction to ethnic students and basic education for disadvantaged areas./.