Hanoi to reopen kindergartens in March

Chu Xuan Dung, deputy chairman of the people's committee, said the Department of Education and Training has been instructed to make plans for it.

Dung also called on preparations for full-day reopening, from morning until late afternoon, which would allow students to stay for lunch.

As a pandemic precaution measure, schools in Hanoi are only reopening for half a day, forcing parents to leave work in the middle of the day to pick their children up.

Tran Luu Hoa, deputy director of the education department, said parents could decide if their children attend school.

Ninth graders returned to school in November last year, followed two weeks later by 12th graders. Students from seventh to 11th grades only came back to school on Feb. 8 followed soon after by primary school and sixth grade students in schools on the city's outskirts.

Next Monday primary and sixth grade students in the capital's 12 inner districts will return to school.