Ready for the new school year

In preparation for the opening day of the new school year, which is also the National Day for Children to Go to School, provinces and cities across the country have fully prepared all conditions, from implementing the work of recruiting students at the beginning of the school year, training to improve the quality of the teaching staff, investing in building facilities to providing enough textbooks... Everything is ready for the new school year 2024 - 2025.

Special school year

According to data from the Ministry of Education and Training, by the 2023-2024 school year, the country will have 25,900 general education institutions, with a total of about 18.5 million students. Provinces and cities have done a good job of universalizing surveys, forecasting the increase and decrease of students in the localities, so they have basically met the conditions of facilities and teachers to organize teaching and learning according to the regulations of the program.

The new school year 2024 - 2025 is a special school year - the year that completes the 2018 general education program innovation chain. In this school year, the new general education program will be implemented simultaneously in grades 5, 9 and 12. This is also the school year that the first entrance exams for grade 10 and high school graduation will take place under the new 2018 general education program.

Currently, educational institutions nationwide have completed the final preparations to welcome students into the new school year.

As the locality with the largest educational scale in the country, this school year, Hanoi continues to lead in the number of students with over 2.3 million students, more than 2,900 schools. According to the Hanoi Department of Education and Training, currently, the average number of primary school students in the whole city is only about 37.5 students/class. Reducing the number of students/class is always the goal and solution of the Hanoi education sector to continue improving the quality of education.

In preparation for the new school year, many schools have renovated and added teaching equipment; repaired desks, chairs, and lighting equipment. For staff and teachers, whether during the summer break or near the new school year, teachers still actively participate in professional training programs, new textbook programs, etc.

Mr. Le Hoai Nam, Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City, informed that in the 2024-2025 school year, the whole city will have over 1.7 million students of all levels, an increase of 24,097 students compared to the previous school year. In this school year, the city plans to put into use 23 new schools with nearly 500 classrooms, with a total investment of over 2.2 trillion VND.

In addition, the city's recruitment needs for the new school year (up to July 2024) are 3,522 teachers and 720 staff. The Ho Chi Minh City education sector has determined that the 2024-2025 school year will continue to follow the spirit of "schools are the foundation, teachers are the driving force, students are the center" to achieve the set tasks.

In other localities, preparations for the new school year are also focused on, such as: Hung Yen province has invested over 1,100 billion VND to build new and repair classrooms, purchase learning equipment and supplies, build libraries, sanitation facilities, and renovate school campuses.

Bac Lieu province has invested in building over 150 new classrooms and 33 toilets with a total cost of over 245 billion VND; renovating and repairing over 500 classrooms, painting walls, repairing student desks and chairs, repairing classroom electrical systems... with a total cost of over 67 billion VND.

In Yen Bai province, a series of schools have been renovated, with classrooms fully equipped with modern teaching equipment. Many schools have completed the construction of functional classrooms such as laboratories, libraries, and computer rooms, to meet the diverse learning needs of students...

In particular, despite many difficulties and shortages, mountainous communes have prepared all conditions, from investing in construction, repair, upgrading school and classroom facilities, purchasing additional equipment to arranging and assigning teachers to be ready for the new school year.

With careful preparation from facilities to teaching staff, the entire education sector is ready for a new school year, promising to achieve many new successes.

Efforts to carry out the tasks of the 2024 - 2025 school year

With the theme: "Innovation, quality improvement, solidarity and discipline", in the 2024-2025 school year, the Ministry of Education and Training directed the entire education sector to focus on implementing 12 main groups of tasks. These include the following tasks: Continuing to perfect institutions, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of state management of education. Ensuring fairness in access to education for all subjects, especially ethnic minorities, orphans, people with disabilities, people from poor households, near-poor households...

Improve the quality of education at all levels. Effectively implement the General Education Program for all grades, especially grades 5, 9, and 12. Prepare well the conditions for organizing the High School Graduation Exam in 2025. Organize well the National Excellent Student Exam and participate in the International Olympic Exams in 2025.

Along with that is the effective use of the state budget and the mobilization of investment resources for education. Ensuring that the actual budget for education and training is at least 20% of the total state budget expenditure. Improving the quality of human resource training, especially high-quality human resources associated with scientific research and innovation. Promoting digital transformation and administrative reform throughout the industry.

Strengthening conditions to ensure technical infrastructure and skills in applying information technology in teaching and learning, testing and evaluating the quality of education and training; continuing to build a national learning infrastructure, a shared digital learning material repository for the entire sector, including: electronic lectures, multimedia digital learning materials, electronic textbooks, simulation software and other learning materials...

Issued together with this Plan, the Ministry of Education and Training sets out 29 general education and training targets for the whole country to strive to achieve in the 2024-2025 school year. Some notable targets include: mobilizing 99.7% of 6-year-old children to enter grade 1; the primary school completion rate strives to reach 99.5%; 40 provinces and cities meet the standards for universal primary education level 3; 29 provinces and cities meet the standards for universal lower secondary education level 1; the rate of people with level 1 literacy within the prescribed age group reaches 98.95%; the rate of people with level 2 literacy within the prescribed age group reaches 97.39%; the rate of preschool and primary school teachers meeting training standards is 91%; the rate of lower secondary school teachers meeting training standards is 94%; the rate of high school teachers meeting training standards is 99%; The rate of university lecturers with doctoral degrees is 35%; the rate of university students per 10,000 people is 230...

Sharing with the press ahead of the new school year 2024 - 2025, Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son said that in the context of general education entering the final stage of innovation, the high school graduation exam entering the first year of implementation according to the new plan, adjustments and innovations in enrollment work are necessary to respond to the entire innovation from general education to university education.

Based on this orientation, the Ministry of Education and Training is currently reviewing and finalizing the draft of new admission regulations for 2025 with the general spirit of simplification, creating convenience for students and society, ensuring admission quality and fairness in opportunities for candidates. Higher education institutions are still in the spirit of autonomous admission but will have to further promote social responsibility.

Regarding the "solving the problem" of teacher shortage (by April 2024, the whole country still lacks 113,491 teachers at all levels of preschool and general education), the Ministry of Education and Training has directed localities to recruit all quotas and place orders for teacher training; universities actively organize training related to new subjects, ethnic language teachers; localities have appropriate support policies for the teaching staff, creating trust and peace of mind for teachers during their work...

Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son hopes that every manager, teacher and staff in the entire sector will continue to make new efforts, new determination, new solutions, and promote the fine traditions of the sector to continue developing Vietnamese education to meet the requirements and tasks assigned by the Party and State.