According to the 2024-2025 school year schedule issued by the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee at the beginning of the new school year, Ho Chi Minh City students are expected to have Lunar New Year holiday in 2025 from January 25, 2025 to February 2, 2025 (ie December 26 to January 5).
Thus, during the upcoming Lunar New Year, students in Ho Chi Minh City will have 9 days off. In previous years, Ho Chi Minh City gave students 12-16 days off.
This makes many families who want to return home for Tet hesitate because they think that a short break will be too much. Therefore, many parents want to adjust the Tet holiday schedule so that students can have a longer break.
On December 6, the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City announced that it has proposed a 2025 Lunar New Year holiday schedule for students from January 23, 2025 to February 2, 2025 (ie December 24 to January 5).
If the proposal is approved by the City People's Committee, students in Ho Chi Minh City will have 11 days off for Lunar New Year 2025.
Mr. Nguyen Van Hai (Binh Tan district) expressed support for the proposal to add Tet holiday for students.
"It's been 3 years since my family has returned home for Tet, so this year we intend to return home, but if the children have a short vacation, the trip will be very rushed," Mr. Hai shared.
Mr. Hai said that his hometown is Ha Tinh, his wife's hometown is Thanh Hoa, with the price of a car during Tet, a family of 4 will spend about 12-13 million VND for both ways. The total travel time from Ho Chi Minh City to the 2 places and back to Ho Chi Minh City will also take about 3-4 days.
"So there are only about 5 days left, the children will not be able to celebrate Tet comfortably and will be tired from having to move constantly," said Mr. Hai.
That is also the concern of Mr. Nguyen Duy Phong (Binh Tan district). Mr. Phong and his wife are both from Nghe An, and are working as workers in Tan Tao industrial park.
"Although things are difficult, my family still returns to our hometown every year for Tet so that my child can see both sets of grandparents. If my child's Tet holiday schedule doesn't change, I might ask the teacher to let my child take a few more days off so that my family can stay in our hometown longer," Phong shared.
Meanwhile, Ms. Thanh Nhung (Binh Thanh District) expressed her support for the current 9-day Tet holiday plan for students.
Ms. Nhung said that she is working in a state administrative agency and that her family does not plan to go anywhere this Tet holiday, so she is worried that there will be no one to look after her children during the remaining days off if they are given 2 more days off as proposed.
"During last year's Tet holiday, my child had a long break so I had to send him to a relative's house, which was very annoying. I know that Ho Chi Minh City has a lot of people from other provinces living and working, so no matter what the Tet holiday plan is, there will be opinions that agree and disagree. I hope the city will soon announce whether or not to change the Tet holiday schedule for students so that people have time to prepare," Ms. Nhung confided.
Lunar New Year 2025, cadres, civil servants, public employees and workers of administrative agencies, public service agencies, political organizations, socio-political organizations will have Lunar New Year 2025 holiday from Saturday, January 25 (ie December 26, year of Giap Thin) to Sunday, February 2 (ie January 5, year of At Ty).
The break lasts 9 days, including 5 official Tet holidays and 4 weekly days off as prescribed in Clause 3, Article 111 of the Labor Code.
