Ho Chi Minh City will implement three preschool education projects totaling VND2.7 trillion (USD135 million) extending until 2015.

From the total amount, VND2.56 trillion (USD128 million), will be spent on a project to build classrooms, VND72 billion (USD3.6 million) will be used for equipment purchases. The rest will be allocated to train 4,732 additional teachers in order to ensure class sizes with a ratio of one teacher per 15 students.

In this academic year, the city has 696 preschools, including 407 public and 289 private ones. The number of pre-elementary students is at 262,354, including 43,452 kindergarten students and 218,902 in nursery.

According to the Ho Chi Minh Department of Education and Training, public schools are currently overloaded, only able to meet 70% of the total demand. Worse still, 12 wards and communes and many industrial parks in the city do not have any public preschools at all. These areas often serve children of industrial workers.

In some newly established districts, the number of public preschools satisfies less that half the demand. Many of these public schools can not provide the regular two sessions per day, due to a staffing shortage and infrastructure problems.

Meanwhile, there is a serious shortage of teachers in some districts, forcing many parents to find babysitters for their child care needs.

At present, up to 2,398 child care workers are employed at local pre-schools, including 798 at classes for five-year old children.

At the same time, pre-school teachers’ training has not yet been standardised. Many of these teachers end up quitting their jobs because of low salaries, adding to the shortage.