What is the progress of the construction of 4,500 classrooms in Ho Chi Minh City?

By the end of the first quarter of 2025, Ho Chi Minh City had completed 16 projects with 395 classrooms in the Project to build 4,500 classrooms to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of the South and National Reunification. It is expected that by the end of this year, the city will complete 44 more projects with 839 classrooms. In 2026, it will continue to complete 60 projects, adding 1,402 classrooms.

There are currently 156 projects with 3,274 classrooms in the process of completing investment procedures. In addition, since the beginning of 2024, Ho Chi Minh City has put into use about 1,430 new classrooms, including 164 from the budget and 1,266 from socialized sources.

Students of Dang Tran Con Primary School (District 4, HCMC) in a class. Photo: AN

Mr. Tran Khac Huy, Head of the Financial Planning Department of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training, assessed that the progress of the project is still slow. By the end of 2025, it is expected that only about 2,000 classrooms will be put into use, reaching about 50% of the plan. Of these, 1,200 classrooms will be from public investment and 800 from socialization.

The main reason is identified as legal and procedural problems in investment. Changes in legal regulations related to public investment, planning, land, environment, etc. have affected the progress of project implementation. Many projects have to go through complicated land acquisition, compensation, and site clearance processes, while price fluctuations increase the need for investment capital.

In addition, in new residential areas, many investors are slow to implement school projects despite their commitments. They mainly prioritize building houses and technical infrastructure to quickly attract people, putting pressure on the existing school system. Currently, Ho Chi Minh City does not have strong enough sanctions to handle these cases.

Mr. Huy added that Ho Chi Minh City has allocated more than VND18,288 billion for the education sector in the 2021-2025 period, accounting for about 10.6% of the city's total public investment capital. Despite slow progress, many districts with great pressure on school places have proactively prioritized clean land funds to speed up the construction of schools and classrooms to meet actual needs.

The representative of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City recommended that the city should have a solution to thoroughly handle investors who do not fulfill their obligations according to the planning, in order to remove bottlenecks and ensure the completion of the project's goals on schedule.

Ho Chi Minh City is implementing a project to build 4,500 classrooms to meet the increasing demand for learning. These projects are divided into three groups: schools that are already in the medium-term investment plan, with favorable procedures and documents; new projects that are feasible; and projects with favorable legal and land conditions, with related issues that can be resolved to speed up investment.

In addition, the city called for socialization of 110 projects with more than 2,300 classrooms, capital of up to more than 541,000 billion VND, in the form of public-private partnership investment (contracts between state agencies and investors to build, manage, and operate), stimulus loans, and socialized investment.

Mr. Nhan

Source: https://tienphong.vn/tien-do-xay-dung-4500-phong-hoc-cua-tphcm-den-dau-post1733149.tpo