New Regulations on Early Childhood Education Development Policy: Difficulties in Implementing the Early Childhood Education Policy in Lao Cai Province, Vietnam

This study presents new regulations on early childhood education development policy and difficulties in implementing policies on early childhood education in Lao Cai province, Vietnam, in the context of a socialist-oriented market economy with state management and regulation. Research results show that Decree No. 105/2020/ND-CP dated September 8, 2020, has improved the implementation of policies on early childhood education development. However, in Lao Cai province, Vietnam, there are still certain difficulties and challenges, which are as follows: After merging schools due to separation of administrative boundaries, some communes are currently exceeding school numbers compared to regulations. As a result, the number of children/schools is not high, so preschool education faces many difficulties. Scattered population are still quite large, e.g., the situation of 4-year-old students studying in combination with 2–3 years old at a main school and some schools due to the large areas. The quality of child care and education in some institutions has not been achieved as expected due to the large number of children/class, while the actual classroom teachers reach about 1.6 teachers/class, even for children aged 24–36 months old, there are a number of schools with the ratio of 1.0 teacher/class, and the teachers simultaneously must do the job of teaching, taking care, and providing support to children. Up to the time of reporting, the rate of underweight children under 5 years old in school was 13.8% and stunting children is 17.6%.