On September 15, Mr. Pham Van Nam - Director of the Department of Education and Training (DET) of Gia Lai province - said that after the Government drafted a Decree regulating the policy of supporting lunch for primary and secondary school students in the border communes, the Department has urgently reviewed and compiled data to prepare the contents to report to the Provincial People's Committee.
"The cost of implementing the policy is supported by the Central Government. The locality has taken steps to speed up the steps so that students in the border area of the province can benefit as soon as the Decree is issued," said Mr. Nam.
Through the review, the whole province has 9,482 students eligible for support, of which 5,695 are primary school students and 3,787 are secondary school students.
According to the draft Decree, the lunch support level is 400,000 VND/month for primary school students and 450,000 VND/month for secondary school students. Thus, the total proposed budget from the Central Government is more than 35.8 billion VND (of which 20.5 billion VND is for primary schools and 15.3 billion VND is for secondary schools). In addition, students are also supported with 8kg of rice/student/month (maximum 9 months), equivalent to more than 682 tons of rice.
According to the Director of the Department of Education and Training of Gia Lai province, for a long time, parents of boarding students in border communes have had to take care of their children's lunch. If the policy is implemented, parents will have less burden on costs, students will have better conditions to have lunch at school, rest and study.
In addition, the western border area of Gia Lai currently has 7 communes with 21 primary and secondary schools, but most of them do not have boarding and semi-boarding conditions; there is a shortage of facilities, and teachers' housing rooms are degraded. Of the 9,482 students in border communes, 54.65% are children of ethnic minorities.
According to the Politburo's policy on investing in the construction of inter-level boarding schools for primary and secondary schools in 248 land border communes across the country, Gia Lai province is expected to invest about 1,200 billion VND to implement in 7 border communes.
Since July, Gia Lai province has directed the Department of Education and Training to coordinate with localities and functional agencies to conduct field surveys, complete documents, and be ready to start construction; some projects are expected to be implemented by the end of this year.
In response to urgent requirements, Chairman of Gia Lai Provincial People's Committee Pham Anh Tuan directed communes to quickly complete land procedures so that schools can start construction as soon as possible.
"Requesting units and localities to immediately implement measurement, compensation, and land transfer. In the immediate future, priority will be given to land allocation for boarding schools, to be completed in September, so that when there is a model design from the Ministry of Construction, the province can immediately implement it," Mr. Tuan directed.
