Livelihood put to test
By Son Nguyen in HCMC
Finally, the scheme of staggering working hours has come into real life in Hanoi as a situational measure taken on a trial basis to fight traffic congestion in the city. At first glance, the scheme over the past two days has yielded positive results, as the vehicular flow has turned looser, allowing the people to move about faster owing to fewer traffic jams. But, as admitted by traffic police officers and observers on local media, uncertainties still lie ahead.
From another angle, outcries are heard when many people see their timetables being breached and their normal life being turned upside down all of a sudden.
As covered in local media, Hanoi City has issued a decision effective from this Wednesday, setting anew the scheme of staggering working hours, impacting mainly students of all grades in the capital city.
Under the scheme, college, university and senior high school students will start classes earlier, at 6:30 a.m., and end later, after 7:00 p.m. Kindergarten, elementary, and junior high school student start classes one hour later, at 7:30 a.m. and end at 5:30 p.m., while State and local officials start work at 8:00 a.m. and end at 5:00 p.m.
Meanwhile, commercial centers and service providers except banking and financial services providers start service at 9:00 a.m. and end after 7:00 p.m. The working hours for other groups are unchanged.
It is estimated that some 900 schools in Hanoi with over 500,000 students are affected by the new scheme, according to Nguoi Lao Dong.
Laments have been heard, especially from students and parents, as reflected in scores of news stories over the past two days.
Nguyen Thu Phuong, a resident in Ba Dinh District who has a child attending a senior high school, says on Vietnamnet her child now has to leave home for school half an hour earlier and return home after 7 p.m. The student therefore does not have enough time at night to prepare homework and cannot join dinner with family.
Another woman named Hoa in the same district complains that as the primary school starts later, at 8 a.m., she has to race against the clock to drop her little child at the school as she herself has to begin work at 8 a.m.
Tran Thi Thu Phuong, a senior high-school teacher in Hoan Kiem District, says in Nguoi Lao Dong she has to take leave for three days to find a suitable time frame to take her two children to school as the two students have different timetables instead of one as before. Bringing the two children back home is also painstaking for her due to their different class-ending times, and she can only arrive home at nearly 8 p.m., she complains, adding “my family’s timetable has turned chaotic.”
In a quick poll conducted among over 20,000 people by Vnexpress.net on Wednesday, over 50% of respondents say they prefer the old scheme rather than the staggering working hours, while the rest of some 49% want changes to the scheme to avoid chaos in their livelihood.
Many parents protest on Tuoi Tre that their living and working schedules have been all turned upside down due to the scheme while the results of the scheme are still uncertain.
In observing traffic circulation in Hanoi on Thursday, Tuoi Tre reports that traffic congestion still occurs in many parts of the capital city.
Some police officers say on Vnexpress.net that it is difficult to assess the scheme now since many migrant workers and students have not returned to Hanoi to resume work or study.
In an interview with Vnexpress.net, Nguyen Xuan Tan, deputy director of Hanoi City Department of Transport, asserts that the new scheme is just situational among many measures being considered to fight traffic congestion, and further changes to the scheme will be introduced to make it more suitable.
“In the absence of elevated roads, monorails or subways, few people can suggest a better scheme than the one on staggering working hours,” Tan says.
However, Nguyen Ba Thanh, Party Secretary of Danang City, concedes that the scheme is just a patchy measure, according to Nguoi Lao Dong.
Nguyen Manh Hung, chairman of the Vietnam Automobile Transport Association, says on Vnexpress.net that the scheme of staggering working hours is just a supportive measure to ease traffic congestion, not a decisive one.
Le Thi Nga, vice chair of the National Assembly’s Legislation Committee, says the scheme will surely affect people’s livelihood. She furthers that many synchronous measures should be introduced to make any positive changes to the current traffic woes. One of the problems is that “high-rise buildings continue to spring up in inner-city areas, leading to a surge in the number of people moving into the city center.”
Although the staggering working hour scheme has been prepared for long, changes to the scheme itself are seen imminent as planners have not taken into account all factors in traffic circulation, since they just want to test-run the scheme. In a meeting conducted soon before the launch, there were opinions against the hastily-prepared scheme, as it would take into calculation the travel demand of only some 2.5 million residents in Hanoi, a city of 6.5 million people, according to Nguoi Lao Dong.
The Saigon Times Daily