Vietnam Hanoi Urged to Recover Idle Land to Build Schools to Ease Overload

The Hanoi Department of Natural Resources and Environment has proposed the municipal People’s Committee reclaim series of idle land lots to build state-owned preschools to ease the current overload. The lots include two in Hai Ba Trung district, two in Tay Ho district, five in Hoan Kiem district and some in Quoc Oai, Ba Vi and Ha Dong district and cover thousands of square meters. According to the department, only nine out of 29 districts in the city have submitted a report on land funds for school construction. Although the capital city is in a serious lack of preschools, five million square meters of land are being left idle. The shortage of preschools is reported by almost all the local districts. Some even have no preschool in spite of the rising demand. The Department of Education and Training earlier estimated that the city will need 17.9 million square meters of land to build more than 1,200 schools from now till 2030. Under the city’s master education development plan by 2020, with a vision for further development till 2030, each commune, ward, town and residential area will have a public preschool and primary school with the minimum area of 8 square meters for an urban student and 12 square meters for a suburban student. Between 2011 and 2015, the city is estimated to need VND7.9 trillion to build 278 schools, including 208 public ones. It will cost the northern metropolis VND22.33 trillion to build 357 school in 2016-2020 and the cost will be VND31.56 trillion in 2021-2030. (vneconomy.vn June 26)