The HCM City Student Assistance Centre and universities have been gifting bus tickets and presents to poor students for Tet (Lunar New Year) that will start in less than 10 days to come.

The centre along with the city unit of the Vietnam Fatherland Front and Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper gave bus tickets to 3,500 students who will return home in 22 provinces, including some as far away as Thanh Hoa and Nghe An in the central region.

The students were chosen as their families were affected by the last floods in the region between Nghe An and Phu Yen provinces. Ethnic minority students who have not been home for Tet for many years were also chosen.

The tickets cost more than 1 billion VND (47,600 USD)

The centre will also help students from the central region buy tickets at discounts of 5-25 percent. The annual Tet exodus sees millions of people travel home from their place of work and study, leaving buses, trains and aircraft packed to the rafters.

Universities and student associations are also making plans to gift bus tickets to their poor members.

The HCM City Social Sciences and Humanities and HCM City University of Technology will each help 100 students.

Next week the centre will give gifts worth 250,000 VND (11.8 USD) each to 1,000 students from other provinces who will remain in HCM City during Tet instead of returning home. It will organise traditional games and parallel sentence composition contests for their entertainment during the holidays.

It has got seasonal jobs for more than 3,000 such students. Also next week the HCM Communist Youth Union will give away gifts to students staying in at 11 dormitories around the city.

Several universities will organise entertainment activities and give gifts to students staying in their dormitories during Tet. /.