Education and training investment aligned with Dong Nai City’s development goals

On the afternoon of May 27, Deputy Secretary of the Dong Nai City Party Committee and Chairman of the City People’s Committee Nguyen Van Ut chaired a working session with the Department of Education and Training on the development of the city’s education and training sector. Member of the City Party Committee’s Standing Board and Vice Chairman of the City People’s Committee Le Truong Son, along with representatives from departments and agencies, also attended the session.

Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee and Chairman of the City People’s Committee Nguyen Van Ut addresses the session with the education sector, outlining key issues. Photo: Cong Nghia

The Department of Education and Training reported that the city currently has 1,350 preschool and general education institutions, including 1,111 public schools and 239 non-public schools. The network of vocational and continuing education centers comprises 18 facilities. In addition, the city is home to 44 vocational education institutions offering intermediate, college and university programs. To date, approximately 71% of public schools in the city have met national standards, with the figure targeted to reach 80% by 2030.

The total number of students and learners across the city has surpassed 1 million. The city’s education and training sector currently employs nearly 53,000 teachers and educational management personnel. Compared with other localities nationwide, Dong Nai’s education and training sector is among the largest in scale, and requires significant investment to support its development and meet the city’s human resource demands in the new development phase.

Member of the City Party Committee and Director of the Department of Education and Training Truong Thi Kim Hue provides further clarification on issues raised by city leaders. Photo: Cong Nghia

In recent years, the city’s education and training sector has introduced reforms to comprehensively improve the quality of teaching and learning, promoted the application of information technology and digital transformation, increased investment in schools and classrooms in border communes, and accelerated the socialization of education while gradually reducing overcrowding in schools and classrooms in several densely populated wards, particularly those with large numbers of industrial park workers.

Representatives of the education and training sector also pointed out difficulties related to the shortage of preschool and general education teachers, which has affected efforts to improve educational quality, particularly the need for teachers to provide two sessions of teaching per school day. Although the higher education and vocational training system has expanded in scale, it has yet to fully meet the demand for high-quality human resources, especially in high-tech fields.

At the session, leaders of the Department of Education and Training and relevant agencies discussed and clarified several issues raised by Chairman of the City People’s Committee Nguyen Van Ut, including planning the school network in areas designated for bauxite mining, the current status of teacher staffing, teacher training for the pedagogical sector, attracting investors of appropriate scale and capacity to develop Dong Nai into a recognized higher education hub, and expanding high schools in areas with growing demand.

Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee and Chairman of the City People’s Committee Nguyen Van Ut delivers directives on key tasks for the education and training sector in the coming period. Photo: Cong Nghia

Speaking at the session, Chairman of the City People’s Committee Nguyen Van Ut highly commended the efforts of the city’s education and training sector, noting that the students account for one-fifth of the city’s population. The city leader affirmed that education and training development has consistently been regarded as a top national policy, a direction that has become even more significant as Dong Nai advances toward new development goals requiring high-quality human resources.

Nguyen Van Ut called for the mobilization of appropriate resources to increase the proportion of schools meeting national standards, while preparing clean land funds to attract socialized investment in education. Particularly, proper planning and a clear roadmap for investing in the construction of schools that meet national standards are needed to serve as a basis for mobilizing and allocating land and capital resources in line with the city’s newly launched 500-day-and-night emulation campaign. The investment process for building schools and classrooms should prioritize areas facing high and urgent demand in order to better meet the needs of local residents.

The Chairman of the City People’s Committee also emphasized that the education and training sector should proactively renew its approach to educational development and strengthen emulation movements aimed at substantively improving the quality of management, teaching, and learning. At the same time, the city leader requested the sector to continue promoting the application of information technology in digital transformation efforts and to apply artificial intelligence to complete and effectively integrate the sector’s data systems.

Regarding the development of the specialized high school system, Nguyen Van Ut noted that Dong Nai City currently has three specialized high schools and should strive to develop nationally recognized specialized schools in line with the city’s development requirements in the coming period. Local universities need to strengthen cooperation with leading universities in Ho Chi Minh City and international partners to improve the training of human resources for the city.

By Cong Nghia - Translated by Minh Hong, Thu Ha