At an online conference in Hanoi on March 8, Mr Nhan said the PM has decided to earmark VND4.5 trillion from government bond sales for this programme in 2010.

He said the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) will work with relevant ministries, agencies and localities to establish a new mechanism for capital disbursement in June to ensure that after using up the money, localities will be provided with additional capital to continue their projects.

MoET and the Ministry of Finance will ask the government to advance capital for 2011 to programme beneficiaries that achieve high levels of capital disbursement, Mr Nhan revealed.

He suggested that localities make full use of their land funds to deal with issues that arise in land clearance and compensation, and said only when this activity is finished, will the government funnel capital into construction work.

MoET has developed a programme to upgrade schools and build houses for teachers in the 2008-2012 period. Total capital for the programme in 2008-09 was VND12 trillion, of which nearly VND8.3 trillion was sourced from government bond sales and VND7.85 trillion was disbursed.