Children at a nursery school in HCM City

Last year, the child abuse case at Phuong Anh Kindergarten raised public concern as to the quality of childcare facilities. Daycares are popular in HCM City, with almost 1,400 households providing these services.

Labourers from across the country come to industrial zones in HCM City for work, but need their children looked after during the day. Public schools only take on children 16-months or older, while private schools accept kids of 12 months, leaving a gap in childcare services.

Investors of industrial zones seem not to have considered childcare problems for their workers. Because of poverty, female workers often go back to work as early as four months after giving birth, so they desperately dependable care for their children while on the job.

It is expected that by the 2015-2016 school year, HCM City will have more than 45,000 more preschool students. Currently, it is estimated that about 500 unlicensed family-based daycare groups are taking care of over 10,000 children.

Chairman of Thu Duc District People's Committee said, "The need for nursery schools, especially ones for children between 6 and 18 months, is obvious. Moreover, labourers face great difficulty in finding safe places to keep their children in case they have to pull extra shifts."

NA Deputy To Thi Bich Van said that taking care of children from 6 to 18 months old is a challenging job, and teachers at nursery schools need an organised support system.

Deputy head of HCM City People's Committee, Hua Ngoc Thuan, said teachers' salaries would be increased by 25%. Moreover, they will spend over VND5 trillion on building and renovating school buildings, as well as VND72 billion on new equipment.

The Director of HCM City Department of Finance said that if the city's budget could not cover the cost, they would borrow money from state budget, commercial banks or state-owned financial institutions.