Community education centers in Khanh Hoa have much improved in recent years. However, more work needs to be done...
Community education centers in Khanh Hoa have much improved in recent years. However, more work needs to be done to raise their effectiveness. According to the 2012 grading by the Education & Training Sector, 24.8% of the community education centers were graded very good, 49.6% good and the rest above average.
Khanh Hoa People’s Council supervision report showed effective activities at community education centers in 2012. 120,602 people attended courses held by community education centers, a two-fold increase compared with 2011.
The number of people finding jobs after short-term courses increased year by year to 20,579 in 2012, contributing to poverty alleviation. Besides, community education centers helped to provide academic enrichment and youth development opportunities, raising the number of literates to 99.36%.
Moreover, community education centers facilitated locals’ access to advanced technology to apply in work and daily life, helping in disease prevention, job creation and cultural life construction.
Typical community education centers included Ninh Giang (Ninh Hoa), Dien Loc, Dien Toan, Suoi Tien, Dien Tho (Dien Khanh), Ba Ngoi, Cam Phuc, Cam Phuoc Dong (Cam Ranh), Song Cau, Khanh Thanh (Khanh Vinh) and Son Binh (Khanh Son).
However, some work needs to be done to make community education centers really helpful to local residents. Some difficulties remain such as lack of infrastructures, teaching equipment, reference materials, etc.
Besides, each community education center receives only VND44 million from the state budget for their operation a year. 2/3 of the funding goes to the management and the rest, only VND15 million, is directly for annual community education.
Community education staff is concurrently employed, so they cannot invest much time and energy in community education activities.
Therfore, one of solutions to the problem is to employ people specialized in community education.
Khanh Hoa Commission of Culture & Social Affairs has also petitioned for assigning teachers in charge of complementary education to directly manage community education centers. The illiteracy eradication, primary and secondary education universalization task has become stable, so it does not take much time as before.
The teachers also have advantages in enlisting support from vocational training centers, high schools in communication education tasks.
The decrease in the cost for concurrent employment means more funding allocated to community education activities.
N.T
