VietNamNet Bridge – A school has been offered for sale since the investors
cannot enroll students, cannot afford the high land leasing fee and the high
bank loan interest rates.
The school put on sale is the Truong Son Intermediate School (2-year
training) in the central province of Dak Lak. It has bogged down in debts for a
long time already and it only can keep operation thanks to the tuitions it
collects from students on behalf of another school.
Truong Son is the first school that operates under the “socialization” scheme in
Dak Lak province, which means that the school doesn’t receive the financial
support from the State.
The school these days has been pervaded by a dreary atmosphere. Nguyen Viet
Truong Thanh, Chair of Truong Son School, admitted that the school is now in
very bad conditions.
In late December 2012, the school’s board of management began discussing the
plan to sell the school to another intermediate school in Buon Ma Thuot City.
“There are only 13 officers still working and about 300 learners at different
faculties,” Thanh said.
“We planned to enroll hundreds of students in 2012, but we could find 31
students only,” he added.
Also according to Thanh, the school has become so tragic, because there are too
many intermediate schools in Buon Ma Thuot City. As a result, there are not many
students for the school to enroll. While the school cannot enroll enough
students, it has to bear overly high land leasing fee.
“At first, we were told that we would be exempted from the land leasing fee.
However, we were later told to pay land fee from 2008, or just two years after
the school became operational,” Thanh complained.
Since Truong Son cannot find enough learners, the receipts from students’
tuitions are not high enough for it to cover expenses and pay bank debts.
Commercial banks have been urging the school to pay bank debts over the last two
years, which has pushed the school to the deadlock.
However, Thanh has admitted that it’s very difficult to find buyers at this
moment. The school which previously intended to buy the school, has changed its
mind, deciding to quit the deal, even though the basic procedures for the deal
got completed.
“They told us that they would be able to afford the current high land leasing
fees, and they decided to give up the game,” Thanh said.
The educator really does not want to sell the school, saying that he feels sad
when advertising the sale of the school. Therefore, he hopes that he would be
able to revive the school, if he can find someone who comes forward and gives
necessary support.
In an effort to cope with the difficulties, Truong Son’s management board
decided to temporarily use the students’ tuitions to keep its operation.
In 2007, Truong Son cooperated with the Da Lat University to run training
courses. Under the cooperation, Truong Son would provide students and material
facilities, while Da Lat would undertake the teaching work.
Under the initial plan, the students of the first training course would take the
final exams in December 2011. However, to date, the students still cannot take
the exams to obtain degrees, simply because Truong Son, which collected tuitions
from them, has not forwarded to Da Lat. As a result, the Da Lat University has
refused to grant degrees to the learners.
Tien Phong