Ministry Urges Focus On Education

The Ministry of Education and Training has urged the 12 provinces and one city in the Cuu Long (Mekong) River Delta to focus on the important measures agreed to achieve education goals by 2015. Speaking at a workshop in Can Tho yesterday, Minister of Education and Training Pham Vu Luan also called on them to make specific plans appropriate for their situation and spell out how they would be implemented. Among the measures that have been agreed is building a network of schools from the kindergarten to university levels. The provinces and city are set to build 22 vocational schools at the college and intermediate levels and increase enrolment of students every year to achieve the target of training 445,000 students a year. Up to 12 new universities could be built by 2015, while 11 colleges will be upgraded or built. Continuing education centers will also be set up in all of the provinces and city. In other targets, they will build dormitories to provide accommodation for 80 per cent of all students and ensure students learn at the right age. This means 98 per cent of five-year-olds will go to kindergartens, with the numbers for primary, secondary, and high schools being 99 per cent, 85 per cent, and 60 per cent. All districts with a population of 10,000 ethnic minority people or more will build high schools for them. Teaching of minority languages will be strengthened, while teaching methods used for minority children will be overhauled. To have enough lecturers to serve the education reform process, the provinces and city will send them overseas to learn and continue to implement the Mekong 1000 program managed by Can Tho University. It seeks to send 1,000 lecturers abroad for training using public funds by 2015. (Vietnam News Sept 10)