On August 22, in an exchange with a reporter from Lao Dong Newspaper, Mr. Nguyen Van Khoa - Director of Nghe An Department of Education and Training - said that the sector is focusing on implementing plans to support free textbooks for students in priority areas, policies and difficult areas.
According to Mr. Khoa, implementing the roadmap for free textbooks, in the 2026-2027 school year, Nghe An prioritizes supporting students in border areas, ethnic minority and mountainous areas, areas with particularly difficult socio-economic conditions, along with students who are policy beneficiaries, poor households, near-poor households and those in difficult circumstances.
Through summary, the whole province has 216,697 students belonging to the group expected to be supported. The Department of Education and Training has advised the province to allocate corresponding funds to implement the policy.
On July 21, the Nghe An Department of Education and Training sent a document to the Vietnam Education Publishing House, and directly worked to prepare textbooks for the above subjects.
However, according to Mr. Nguyen Van Khoa, the supply of a large quantity of textbooks right before the new school year is difficult because the process of ordering, printing and issuing needs to be prepared many months in advance.
To have enough books for the next school year, ordering must be done very early. Therefore, in a short time, the publisher expects to only be able to supply a part of the necessary number of books," Mr. Khoa said.
Faced with this situation, the Nghe An Education sector is considering additional plans to allocate budget to communes so that localities can directly support funding for students to buy textbooks, ensuring the rights of students in the new school year.
In addition, the Department of Education and Training will deploy the construction of shared textbook cabinets in schools.
According to the Director of Nghe An Department of Education and Training, from the 2026-2027 school year, the whole country will use a unified set of textbooks. This is a favorable condition to mobilize students from previous grades to donate used books to schools, adding them to the common bookshelf to support students from later grades.
The construction of bookshelves will be carried out regularly, through each school year, in order to gradually create a rich source of books that can be reused and promptly support students in difficult circumstances.
According to Decree 271/2026/ND-CP, the policy of free textbooks for all students nationwide is implemented from the 2029-2030 school year; localities are encouraged to implement it earlier for groups of students and priority areas when conditions permit.
