Six northern provinces, namely Bac Ninh, Hoa Binh, Hai Duong, Vinh Phuc, Phu Tho and Thai Binh, have fulfilled universal preschool education for five-year-old children, according to the government’s online newspaper VGP.

The VGP quoted the Early Childhood Education Department under the Ministry of Education and Training as saying that so far 298 out of 698 districts have covered universal preschool education in 63 cities and provinces.

Statistics showed that 86.5 percent of preschoolers attended schools, up 2.1 percent against last year; while the rate of attendance among five-year-old children was 99.7 percent (up 1.1 percent).

The number of pre-schoolers was 4 million, up 217,247 against 2012.

The Project on Universalising Pre-school Education for Five-Year-Old Children in the period of 2010-2015 was approved by the Prime Minister in 2010.

Accordingly, the project sets the overall goal of having the majority of five-year-old children throughout the country attend two classes a day for a full school-year in order to be fully prepared for their first grade.

With total investment of 14.66 trillion VND, through its four component projects, 11,600 classrooms will be built; toys and educational equipment will be provided; teachers will be trained, and 86 national-standard pre-schools in 86 disadvantageous and poor districts nationwide will be established.-VNA