The Da Nang authorities have found the St.Nicholas Preschool-Primary-Junior-Senior High School at 458 Nguyen Huu Tho in Cam Le District’s Khue Trung Ward to have been in breach of planning control. In particular, the school has failed to follow the approved plans or failed to comply with planning permission.

The St.Nicholas Preschool -Primary-Junior-Senior High School

The city’s Department of Education and Training and the Cam Le District authorities will consider and suggest that the city government should stop the operation of the school at 458 Nguyen Huu Tho. Special attention will be paid to developing plans for building a new school meeting the current construction standards at another location.

Developed by the Viet Nam Mudd Harvey Education Investment JSC, the St.Nicholas Preschool -Primary-Junior-Senior High School was officially open for the 2018-2019 academic year. To date, the school has enrolled over 100 Vietnamese, South Korean, Hong Kong, Indian, the US, and Swedish pupils.

According to the municipal Department of Construction, on 20 December 2010, the municipal authorities gave a nod for the Bach Dang Commercial and Service Co.Ltd to build a 9-storey office block and a 5-storey electronic product showroom office at 458 Nguyen Huu Tho Street.

The work covered a total area of 4,088m², including a construction area of 2,840m².

According to the construction licence granted by the municipal Department of Construction on 18 May 2018, the office building giving a total floor area of 10,228m² has 9 storeys and one basement.

However, during construction process, the project developer has failed to comply with approved plans with the development works built from 4-5 storeys, plus one basement. 

On 23 July 2018, the Cam Le District authorities gave the permission for the Viet Nam Mudd Harvey Education Investment JSC to convert the office building and a electronic product showroom into the existing St.Nicholas Preschool -Primary-Junior-Senior High School.

On the other hand, the construction site of the school is contiguous to the intersection of Nguyen Huu Tho and Xo Viet Nghe Tinh streets which is one of the city’s major urban roads. This fails to meet the current construction standards.

A spokesperson for the municipal Department of Education and Training said there is no international school in the city which meet the standards as stipulated in the Viet Nam Education Law and the Government Decree No 86/2018/ND-CP on foreign cooperation and investment in education.

At present, Da Nang is now home to 3 foreign-invested schools with the ‘International’ phrase in their names, namely the Little Giants International Kindergarten, the Singapore International School, and the American Pacific University (APU) International Primary-Junior-Senior High School.

In addition, the Viet Nam - Singapore International Primary and Junior High School is a private school with the ‘International’ phrase in its name.

All these foreign-invested schools use foreign training programmes and have pupils from foreign countries.