Schools in the northern province of Bac Ninh will be allowing youngsters to use their playgrounds this summer to keep them away from busy roads.

Nguyen Van Chau, 12, is one of those who will be visiting his local school this summer.

“Up to now we have been forced to play in the street because we didn’t have anywhere else to go during the holidays,” Chau said.

Truong Quang Hai, deputy secretary of Bac Ninh Youth Union, said youth organisations have asked primary and secondary schools in the province to allow children to use their playgrounds because of the chronic shortage of playgrounds in the province.

Hai added that provincial youth organisations have also asked relevant agencies to organise activities such as martial arts, foreign languages and computer training and chess clubs for children over the summer.

“We hope our children will have a healthy and safe summer holiday,” Hai said, adding that the initiative had been warmly received by parents.

Chau’s mother, Thu Hang, said the scheme will make her life as a parent a lot less stressful over the holiday.

She said last year, Chau had nearly burnt her house down because he had been forced to stay at home.

“After that accident, I had to bring my two children to the office for almost three months during the summer holiday,” Hang said.

Meanwhile, the central city of Da Nang has organised life classes, which contents include how to have a good behaviour, arrange time, introduce one’s self, meet new friends and speak easily in front of a crowd as well as learning in a group, and openly discuss matters, for third to ninth graders, said Mai Xuan Mui, deputy director of Da Nang’s Culture House for Teenagers.

About 500 pupils have already registered for the class, he said.

“While city children study endlessly, cram in many hours of extra tuition and are excused from doing chores around the house, their country cousins usually come home and do household chores or work in the fields before setting down to study.

“As a result, urban students are often far less attuned to the business of living, relating to others and solving simple problems that arise in daily life,” Mui said.

“I hope the class will not only be useful but will also discourage children from wasting their time playing computer games or taking drugs this summer,” Mui said.

Meanwhile, the youth union in the southern cape province of Ca Mau, in conjunction with provincial departments of Education and Training and Culture, Sports and Tourism, plans to hold swimming classes.

Nguyen Minh Luan, secretary of the provincial youth union, said each ward and town would mobilise 20 youth volunteers to teach teenagers to swim.

“In rural areas, volunteers will hold swimming lessons for primary school children in safe canals and ponds during the summer holiday, which will hopeful mean they are safer during the wet season,” Luan said.

A UNICEF representative in charge of the Child Injury Prevention Programme in Vietnam, said children often played in ponds and streams even though they did not know how to swim.

Drowning is one of the leading causes of child mortality in Vietnam, said the deputy minister of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA), Phung Ngoc Hung.

The ministry has started implementing a programme to teach primary and secondary school children to swim, said Nguyen Trong An, deputy director of the ministry’s Child Care and Protection Department.

About 5,000 children are now learning how to swim in the Cuu Long (Mekong) province of Dong Thap, according to the Population, Families and Children Committee.

Source: VNA