Hanoi is pressing ahead with a pilot project to improve education quality in kindergartens and nurseries with half of them reaching national standards by 2015. 

The department said the US$167 million project funded by the city’s education budget, aims to ensure that 35 percent of children under three and 95 percent aged three to five get pre-school education and care. This will mean that all five-year-olds are ready for the first grade within six years. 

The project will provide the city with US$56.1 million to build more pre-schools and US$55.5 million to improve temporary classrooms. The remainder will be spent on improving facilities, raising education standards and ensuring the children’s health, said the department. 

The project also aims to provide 70 percent of disabled children with proper pre-school education and reduce malnutrition rates among children to below 7 percent. 

“The city’s kindergartens and nurseries will have internet access and 80 percent will use information technology in management and education by 2015,” said Nguyen Ngoc Diep, head of the department’s Planning and Finance Division. 

If correctly implemented, the project will expand the pre-school education network and make sure that every ward or commune has at least one or two kindergartens and nurseries, said Diep. 

The department statistics show that there are 790 kindergartens and nurseries catering for 85 percent of children aged between three and five and about a quarter of those under three and the city needs about 700,000sq.m to build the required facilities.