Schools lose standards, have difficulty meeting standards due to mergers

In March 2024, Thanh Hai Kindergarten (Thanh Ha) also lost its national standards after 5 years due to the merger of 2 kindergartens and exceeding the scale of the number of groups and classes according to Circular No. 13/2020/TT-BGDDT dated May 26, 2020 of the Ministry of Education and Training promulgating regulations on standards of facilities for kindergartens, primary schools, middle schools, high schools and multi-level general schools.

The current situation in the three localities above is a common difficulty in building standard schools in Hai Duong today. The whole province currently has 184 schools that have not met national standards, 61 schools are expected to not meet national standards when the re-recognition deadline comes, mainly due to exceeding the number of classes.

Should schools be merged?

Currently, the province has 184 substandard schools, accounting for nearly 22% of the total number of schools in the province. The number of schools meeting standards at all four levels of preschool, primary, secondary and high school has not met the target set by the Resolution of the 17th Provincial Party Congress for the 2020-2025 term. Some localities and schools are worried that the rate of substandard schools will increase if schools are merged when merging commune-level administrative units in the 2023-2025 period.

Some localities and schools in the province have proposed not to merge kindergartens, primary schools, and secondary schools in newly established communes and towns to stabilize the implementation of the 2018 general education program and build schools that meet national standards. At the same time, it is necessary to avoid difficulties when teachers and students have to teach and study in scattered, degraded schools while the budget cannot be invested in a spacious central school when merging.

At the monitoring session of the Culture - Society Committee of Hai Duong Provincial People's Council, Mr. Do Duy Hung, Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training, emphasized that school mergers need to be considered thoroughly and carefully for each specific case. "For small and scattered schools, it is necessary to merge to concentrate management, investment, and improve operational efficiency. If two schools are both spacious, have good facilities and have met standards but merge into a non-standard school, they should not merge. Inter-level schools should not be merged either," Mr. Hung stated his opinion.

In the recent past, some localities did not follow the guidance of the Department of Education and Training when merging schools. In the coming time, the Department of Education and Training needs to strongly advise local Party committees and authorities on the policy of merging schools when merging communes in each specific case to avoid the situation of schools losing standards when merging.

Statistics from the Department of Education and Training show that the province currently has 67 oversized schools, mainly at the preschool and primary levels. In addition to advantages such as reducing focal points and streamlining the apparatus, the school merger in the previous period has remained a "difficult problem" as it has caused many schools to "lose standards and have difficulty meeting standards".