Hanoi (VNA) – Manyprivate pre-schools in Hanoi are open and operating illegally regardless ofregular inspections conducted by the city’s education authority.

This has raised serious concerns over poor management of authorised agencies.

Last month, a supervisory board of the municipal People’s Council conductedsurprise inspections at private pre-schools and found a high number ofunlicensed classes.

Tran The Cuong, a representative of the council and a member of the inspectionteam, said they found 70 nursery classes without operation certificates andabout 600 classes with more children than was allowed.

Authorities say, because the classes failed to meet requirements on a number oflevels, including infrastructure and teachers, they could not be licensed asschools.

Cuong said local authorities had no information about these unlicensed nurseryclasses until they accidentally heard a baby crying when going by the classes.

He also added that most of these pre-schools failed to obey requirements on thenumber of kids each class.  

Many classrooms in Hai Ba Trung district had the area of 15 square meters, butcrammed about 20 children into each one.

Under the Ministry of Education and Training’s regulation, there must be atleast 1.5 square metres per child in each class.

Other classrooms were located in small alleys with no playgrounds or toilets.All were renovated from residents’ houses, which failed to meet requirements onfire prevention, food hygiene and safety and light system.

Many classes usually switched teaching staff, and some teachers were foundnot to be trained about nursery education. Some businesses even hired oldpeople with poor health and lack of skills to work as babysitters.

Cuong said local authorities were not active in tightening control and crackingdown on illegal nursery classes.

Hoang Thi Tu Anh, another member of the inspection team, said the number ofillegal nursery classes should be more than 70 as reported.

She said one business was found to have eight classes. Of that, only two werelicensed. But she said she believed the rest of six were still operating due toloose management.

Le Thu Hang from the council said the procedures of establishment and controlof private nursery classes was under the management of communes and wards andshould be implemented easily.

She also added that these classes were controlled by the heads of publicpre-schools in the same locality. However, the heads of public schools werequite busy with their schools and had no time for other schools.

Currently, there were no specific penalties on these people in case somethinghappened at private schools.

Hang cited Kim Chung commune in Dong Anh district as an example. Many privatenursery classes were set up to meet the high demand of workers at an industrialzone, but there was no one directly in charge of controlling these classes.-VNA