HCM City seeks ways to help students with financial difficulties

HCM City (VNS/VNA) - Nguyen Thi Thu Tuyet has spent 600,000 VND (26 USD) for new textbooks and learning tools for the new school curriculum this year, nearly triple the amount compared to other textbooks.

Tuyet said that to prepare for her first-grade child in HCM City, she had to pay more than 1 million VND to buy three sets of school uniforms and one physical education uniform that cost nearly 600,000 VND.

Similarly, Huynh Tan Minh in Go Vap district had to spend 1.5 to 2 million VND (65-87 USD) to prepare for his first-grade child.

The Government will not subsidise the new textbooks, so the parents have to buy the new textbooks for their children, he added. Nguyen Thanh Trung, chief of the secretariat at the city’s Department of Education and Training, said that all five sets of textbooks, approved by the education ministry, will be about 300,000 VND (12.9 USD) each, nearly double compared to last year's textbooks.

The city will spend a part of its budget to buy sets of textbooks for students with financial difficulties if they cannot afford to buy them, Hieu said.

In Tan Phu district, which is one of the localities having the largest number of low-income migrant workers in the city, a principal of a school in the district said the school will seek donations to buy textbooks for students with financial difficulties.

Of the five sets, the Chan Troi Sang Tao textbooks were chosen by 80 percent of the city’s schools.

Nearly 1 million copies of the textbooks have been printed, accounting for 81 percent of the total textbook copies issued in the city, according to Vietnam Education Publishing House Co. Ltd.  

Because the textbooks were written by many authors from the southern region, words and phrases as well as data are familiar to students.

“Many primary teachers in the city also took part in compiling them,” Hieu said.

He said the city’s teachers are using new teaching and testing methodologies that will be compatible with the textbooks.

To meet the demands of the new training programme, Hieu said that having enough classrooms for first graders is a challenge because schools face a shortage of classrooms. The city’s land fund for building more schools is limited.

The new training programme will require first-graders to study throughout the day. In the morning shift, students will study Vietnamese, maths, and other subjects. In the afternoon shift, they will receive instruction through various activities.

First-graders will study six days per week instead of five days if they study all day.

The city has instructed educational sup-departments and schools to review their facilities and teaching aids and devices, Hieu said.

The city has 551 primary schools, including 484 public schools, an increase of four compared to the previous academic year.

There are 3,550 classrooms for the first grade for the 2020-21 school year, with a shortage of 443, according to the department.

Hieu has instructed schools to use classrooms, halls and schoolyards to organise activities to teach skills to first graders if they lack classrooms./.