Education sector: Focusing on building safe – friendly preschools

– In order to maintain and improve the quality of mobilization of children to school, over the past time, the provincial education sector has made great efforts in building safe and friendly schools at the preschool level.

 The province currently has 232 preschools (of which, there are 7 non-public preschools) with a total of nearly 54,000 children. Determining that ensuring a safe and friendly environment is an important factor contributing to improving the quality of child care and education, over the years, the Department of Education and Training has focused on investing and requiring educational institutions to actively consult with local authorities to mobilize resources for investment in facilities,  school supplies to contribute to building a green, safe and friendly preschool, meeting safety requirements for children to study and play. Accordingly, from June 2021 to now, the whole province has built 37 new classrooms, renovated and repaired 9 kindergarten classrooms, bringing the total number of permanent classrooms to 1,669 rooms out of a total of 2,230 preschool classrooms (reaching 74.84%).

Extracurricular activities of students at 8/3 Kindergarten, Lang Son city

Ms. Nong Khanh Linh, Principal of Kindergarten in Tan Tien Commune, Trang Dinh District said, “currently, the school’s facilities have been built spaciously, cleanly and beautifully, ensuring standards, the environment inside and outside the classroom is arranged close, familiar, safe design, beautifully decorated. At the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year, the school was recognized as a national standard school. Currently, there are nearly 150 children, 100% of children studying at the school are absolutely safe both physically and mentally, with no accidents or injuries.”

In order to ensure the safety of children at schools, strengthening the management of the quality of semi-boarding meals, building a balanced, diverse and reasonable diet, meeting nutritional needs according to regulations has been well implemented. In addition, schools always pay attention to building menus and calculating servings for children according to regulations, ensuring the nutritional structure is suitable for age groups and practical conditions of each locality. As a result, the rate of malnourished children with both underweight and stunted forms in the 2021-2022 school year decreased from 0.1 to 1.29% compared to the same period last school year.

In order for children to be cared for and raised in a safe educational environment, the human factor is very important. In recent years, along with investing in facilities and learning materials, the education and training sector has also regularly paid attention to taking care of teachers and preschool education administrators on professional ethics, arouse a sense of responsibility and love for children. Currently, the whole sector has more than 7,000 administrators, teachers, and preschool staff. Up to now, 232/232 units have developed a code of conduct for the school; Set up a hotline and post the information publicly at a convenient place for parents to easily contact. In addition, preschool educational institutions actively coordinate well between the school and the representative board of students’ parents and families in monitoring, preventing and preventing acts of violating teacher ethics, infringing on children’s body, health and spirit.

In particular, in the face of the complicated development of the COVID-19 pandemic, over the past 2 years, the Department of Education and Training has directed and guided schools to strictly follow the recommendations for disease prevention and control of functional sectors and local authorities. Thereby, 100% of kindergartens have teaching scenarios to cope with the complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic approved by the Department of Education and Training; make videos to guide parents when children can’t go to school through social platform such as Zalo, school, class, group Facebook’s page.

Mr. Ho Cong Liem, Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training said, “Every year, the inspection shows that the preschools in the province are interested and do well in the task of building a safe and friendly school environment. In particular, schools have focused on investing in purchasing and repairing facilities and teaching equipment to ensure safety, suitable for both the environment inside and outside the classroom. In the coming time, the department will continue to direct preschool educational institutions to make more efforts, highlighting their roles and responsibilities in building a safe and friendly preschool for children.

The building of a safe educational environment for preschool children has contributed to the annual increase in the rate of children going to school of all ages. In the school year 2021-2022, the mobilization rate for kindergartens reached 40.83% (increasing by 1.33% compared to the previous school year); the mobilization rate of 5-year-old preschool children reached 99.94% (increased by 0.04%). In the first semester of the school year 2021-2022, 100% of preschools in the area ensured absolute safety for children.