Provinces in the Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) and 28 districts in six neighbouring provinces have outlined a plan that calls for changes to the educational system.

Under Government Decision 1951/QD-TTg, the region will require children to attend kindergarten, with more than 98 percent of five-year-old children attending kindergarten by 2015.

It also calls for 96-98 percent of ethnic minority children five years old to be able to speak Vietnamese before they enter the first grade.

Under the plan, the region targets having 98-99 percent of children attend primary school, 87-90 percent of children attend lower secondary-school and 60 percent of children attend upper secondary school.

The rate of literacy above 15 years of age will be 96 percent.

All districts with a large number of ethnic minority people will have ethnic-minority boarding schools.

The region will establish more continuing education centres and community-based learning centres so that every district will have a continuing education centre and 90 percent of communes will have a community-based learning centre.

In tertiary education, the region will have 180 students per 10,000 people and the number of ethnic minority students will account for 18-20 percent.

The region will build two new universities and four colleges. The Tay Nguyen University and the the Da Lat University will open more faculties to meet the region's human resource demand and become the region's key training and outreach centre. In vocational training, the number of skilled workers will reach 35 percent of the region's total labourers.

The region is aims to have 15 intermediate vocational schools and five vocational colleges. In addition, there will be at least one vocational training centre in every district.

The plan calls for investment in dormitories to be increased to ensure that at least 60 percent of students in vocational schools, universities and colleges can live in dormitories.

The region includes the provinces of Kon Tum, Gia Lai, Dak Lak, Dak Nong and Lam Dong and 28 mountainous districts of six neighbouring provinces — Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, Khanh Hoa and Binh Phuoc. /.