Many districts in HCM City have helped students who failed to get admission to tenth-grade classes in public senior high schools continue their education at vocational schools. Students at vocational schools in Binh Chanh District had their tuition fees completely subsidised, said Nguyen Minh Chau, head of the district's Education and Training Office. The district's preferential policy for vocational trainees has been carried out since the 2006-07 school year onwards, Chau said. The financial assistance has helped push up the rate of applications to vocational schools in the district to a record high of 10 per cent of the total number of junior high school graduates last year, he said. In Nha Be District, similar preferential policies providing tuition fee subsidies have seen the rate of applications to vocational schools increase remarkably and is projected to reach 15 to 20 per cent of the number of junior high school graduates for the 2010-15 period. Nguyen Trung Khanh, head of the district's Education and Training Office, said that students with vocational training diplomas would be offered employment opportunities in enterprises operating in the district. Binh Tan District, meanwhile, has helped more than 250 students with junior high school diplomas continue their studies at vocational schools, with each student receiving VND600,000 per year to cover their tuition fees last year, said Tran Huu Vinh, head of the district's Education and Training Office.
It hopes to assist about 300 students to receive vocational education training this school year, Vinh said.
"Vocational schools are the wisest choice for students who fail to get admission to public senior high schools because they spend only three years and a half to complete the training and obtain diplomas," he said.
"They can further their education at colleges and universities after graduating from vocational schools," he said.
Some 15 vocational schools in the city have announced they had enrolled 7,240 students this year, with tuition fees ranging from VND 675,000 to VND3 million a semester, according to the department.
