Private schools are dissolved, public schools are overloaded, many preschool children have not been able to attend school

Baby Bong (4 years old, Hanoi) is still at home today due to the dissolution of the old school. Ms. Nguyen Phuong Thao (31 years old, Bong’s mother) has not found a new place to study for her child, so she continues to send her child to her grandmother’s house.

From January 2022, Hoa Mi Private Kindergarten announced its dissolution due to insufficient financial capacity to maintain operations, and Thao and other parents were surprised and regretful. They had to find a new learning environment for their children. Because she does not have a household registration in Hanoi, Theo’s only option is a private school. The criteria given by the 31-year-old mother is that the classroom space is clean and spacious, the classroom is not too crowded and there are cameras. Besides, she wants the school to have a program of teaching and training for her children, not just babysitting. The estimated cost is from 4 to 5 million VND/month including food.

“After 3 months of searching, I still don’t like any facilities. Schools that meet the criteria will have too high a tuition fee, and within the limit, the school has not really met the wishes of parents, even the facilities. somewhat degraded”Ms. Thao said and said, after 4 times of translation, the number of private kindergartens dissolved is large and new schools are opened almost very few, so parents do not have as many choices as before.

Meanwhile, Ms. Phan Thi Chung (29 years old, Thanh Xuan, Hanoi) has a household registration in Hanoi but cannot “squeeze” her child into a public preschool. Before the epidemic, her daughter studied at Sunrice Bilingual Private Kindergarten. At the end of 2021, the school announced the transfer of another investor, changed its name and changed all teachers and study programs. If parents have a need, they can continue to send their children to school.

“The school changed owners, tuition fees increased 1.5 times higher than before, more than 10 million VND/month. Therefore, my family decided to withdraw from school to transfer the child to a more suitable school.” Ms. Chung said. Her family enrolled in a public school near her home, but due to the quota, the school could not accept more children. She had to find another more suitable private school. While waiting to go to school, her family decided to send her child back to her hometown to look after her grandparents and temporarily attend a preschool nearby.

Not only Ms. Thao, Ms. Chung, many parents with children of preschool age are also having difficulty in finding schools and classes for their children at this time. After a long time of epidemic, private preschool education institutions simultaneously “disappeared” or changed owners or changed names, making parents unable to keep up.

Private school crying

Many kindergarten owners are sad and helpless when they cannot immediately open the door to welcome students. Mr. Le Hai Anh, owner of Hoa Ban Kindergarten (Hoang Mai, Hanoi) is having a headache with the renovation and upgrading of facilities and classroom equipment.

“Closed for nearly a year, 50% of furniture, wooden toys, paper are rotten, items cannot be reused, black mold classroom walls have to be repainted. Expenses for painting, repairing and buying new equipment estimated at nearly 1 billion dong, exceeding the school’s economic potential. Mr. Hai Anh said and said, temporarily, the school decided to close for another week to replace and repair, in time to pick up the children early next week.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Tien, owner of two private preschools Sad Little Smile, one facility had to be dissolved 5 months ago due to insufficient funds to rent space, and the other did not recruit enough standing teachers. class should not be active.

“Many parents texted and called her to ask her when the school could reopen. I don’t know how to respond to parents when at the present time, many financial and human resource difficulties have not been overcome. “she said.

Before the epidemic, each of Ms. Tien’s kindergartens averaged about 150 children of different ages, with a revenue of about 4 million/month/child. However, the epidemic lasted for a long time, while there was no backup, after more than 5 months of continuous burden, she decided to dissolve the school.

“Although we really wanted to hold on, because we couldn’t pull and pull, we had to let go. The transfer of the facility was also very difficult because no one wanted to buy back the kindergarten at that time, we could only “sell out” the furniture, earning less than 1/3 of the investment value. she said.