Students made to sweat in accommodation scramble

by Bich Huong and Hang Nguyen HA NOI (VNS)— Trinh Nguyet Minh sits down at the small folded table, wipes the sweat from her face and attentively opens her pamphlet offering advice to first-year university students. The temperature in the 10-sq.m room is 37 degrees Celsius. Some newly-washed clothes hang by the door, drying in the sunlight. The room feels very stuffy, as it is full of books, shoes, bowls, kitchen equipment and a bulging wardrobe. Minh moved in here, in Ha Noi’s Thanh Xuan District, last week after a long search for accommodation, “I spent two weeks exploring lanes all over the city before finding this place, which costs VND1 million (US$47) per month and so fits my budget,” says the 18-year-old girl from northern Hung Yen Province. This amount is nearly half the monthly allowance provided by her parents, who are farmers, she explains. “It’s not perfect. The room with the metal roof gets really hot on summer days and it is 10km away from my university. However, it doesn’t matter as I will spend most of my time at school and I don’t mind cycling,” she says with the eagerness of a young adult about to start an exciting new adventure fresh from receiving excellent university entrance results. Minh was not alone in her hard search for lodgings. About 80 per cent of 300,000 first-year students across the country have not been offered a place in their universities’ dormitories. Many are still struggling to seek a room,… [Read full story]