Vietnam Spends $764.4M to Improve Pre-school Education through 2015

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved spending VND14.6 trillion ($764.4 million) to improve the quality of pre-school education in the 2010-2015 period. The money is used to build national standard preschools in underprivileged areas, retrain 22,000 teachers and purchase teaching devices, the Dai Doan Ket newspaper reported Feb. 23.  This is part of the government’s National Program of Education For All through 2015, it added.  Currently, 80% of children under five years old attend kindergartens, more than 96% of children aged six attend primary schools, said Pham Ngoc Dinh, deputy head of the Ministry of Education and Training’s Primary Education Department. In the 2008-2009 school year, 13% of kindergartens met national education standards. The rate will be 15% next year.