Parents in Hanoi will not have to queue up to enroll their kids in public kindergartens by 2015 when there is no shortage of preschool facilities like the present, Pham Thi Hong Nga, vice director of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training.

Due to limited seats available, those parents gather in large numbers in front of the kindergartens to struggle for a place in a list, prepared by a parent they randomly ‘elect’, of those who will be ‘eligible’ for the enrolment forms the schools will give out.

Many, as a case in point, have recently had to ‘lingered’ overnight in front of one public kindergarten in Thanh Cong Ward, Ba Dinh District in hopes they could ‘book’ seats at the school for their kids.

This is something that has repetitively happened in recent years in the capital, Nga admitted.

The department has petitioned the Hanoi People’s Committee for land banks to build new preschool facilities, she revealed.

She said she would, as a deputy, continue proposing a cap on tuition which many had complained was overcharged by private kindergartens.

Private schools do help lessen the enrolment burden on public schools, she said.

Eighty percent of kindergartens in Hanoi are public, Nga said.

But the capital still needs around 700,000 more square meters for new schools given increased demand, estimates have revealed.

Lack of seats

Public kindergartens in Thanh Cong Ward can only admit 1,700 kids at the most, according to Nguyen Lan Huong, chief of the preschool division of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training.

There are only two such schools in the area, she says, adding 2,495 kids are due to attend kindergartens at the moment.

Drawing for enrolment

Some public kindergartens in the capital even make a draw to choose which parents will get a place for their kids since they cannot enroll all of them.

A draw could be considered a Band-Aid solution to the ‘enrolment overload’, though not quite appropriate, said Pham Thi Hong Nga, vice director of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training.