Work on universalising pre-school education across the country during the past two years has reaped encouraging results, especially in the development of kindergartens.

Teachers oversee children under five play with toys at Hoa Lan pre-school in southern Yen Bai Province. About 15 per cent of communes across the country do not have independent kindergartens and only 20 per cent meet national standards. — VNA/VNS Photo Nguyen Thuy

The comment was made at an online workshop drawing the participation of representatives from 63 provinces and cities nationwide on Thursday.

The workshop was held to review implementation of a project on universalising pre-school education that was approved by the Prime Minister two years ago.

Up to 610 public and private kindergarten schools were established during the past two years, bringing the total number of kindergartens nationwide to nearly 13,000.

Despite the improvements, a number of provinces and cities such as northern Hoa Binh Province and central Quang Tri and Ha Tinh provinces still only have only a third of pre-school aged children going to kindergartens.

In order to reach the target of completing universalisation of kindergarten education for five-year-old children at all localities nationwide by 2015, participants at the workshop proposed the Government pour more investment into building schools while drafting better policies for kindergarten teachers.

Meanwhile, deputy director of HCM City's Education and Training Department Tran Thi Kim Thanh said that while the city had earmarked VND2.7 trillion (USD129.6 million) to implement the project, many communes failed to build kindergartens for local children due to a shortage of land.

Deputy Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Thi Nghia admitted that the network of schools and classes nationwide remained limited. About 15 percent of communes across the country did not have independent kindergartens and only 20 per cent of kindergarten schools met national standards.

Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan instructed localities to ensure the efficiency of the project by co-ordinating work on building and upgrading kindergartens, providing training for teachers to improve the quality of teaching staff and regularly checking on the implementation of the project to promptly deal with emerging difficulties.

The country intended to spend more than VND14.6 trillion ($701 million) on the project, which will cover the construction of new schools, classrooms, provision of study and teaching aids, training for teachers and support for poor students.

Also under the project, 86 kindergarten schools meeting national standards will be built in 62 poor districts, of which 24 are mountainous districts in six provinces bordering the Central Highlands.