The teacher who asked parents for money to buy a personal laptop has been causing a public uproar in recent days. When explaining to the press, she said: "I think this is normal, in line with the policy of socializing education...".

N STRANGE INCOME

On a social networking site, Tan Minh A Secondary School (Soc Son District, Hanoi) posted a list of 17 collection fees and agreed collection fees with a total amount of 8,111,000 VND/student from an 8th grade homeroom teacher. Some "strange" fees, contrary to regulations, have been pointed out, such as: hiring cleaning services outside the classroom 70,000 VND/student/10 months; repairing the gym 100,000 VND/student; outside experiential activities 700,000 VND/student...

Principal of Tan Minh A Secondary School Nguyen Thi Hoa explained that the "strange" fees such as those for repairing the gymnasium are part of the school's socialization policy stemming from the fact that the physical education room is too small and does not meet learning needs. At the beginning of the school year, the school only required homeroom teachers to ask for parents' opinions at meetings but did not start collecting fees.

Dong Xuan Primary School (Soc Son District, Hanoi) also made parents angry with 18 collection items this school year with a total collection amount of 5,392,000 VND/student, including many "strange" collection items such as: hygiene, test papers, weekend tickets; many items such as after-school education, English, life skills... were collected for all 9 months.

Parents of first graders at Ngo Thi Nham Primary School (Thanh Tri District, Hanoi) recently expressed their anger to the press about being informed at the beginning of the school year that each month the class would need to pay 500,000 VND to hire someone to clean the classroom. If they did not hire someone, the parents would have to come to school at 5:00 p.m. every day to clean the classroom instead of their children.

PHOTO: DAO NGOC THACH

In the petition, the parents also stated that at the beginning of the school year when registering their children for classes, the school offered options such as: classes with air conditioning and classes without air conditioning. However, even though they had registered their children for classes with air conditioning, at the beginning of the school year, the parents were informed by the school that the first grade class would support 10 new air conditioners, with an expected contribution of 300,000 VND per student. In addition, during the meeting, parents were informed about donating the school an artificial turf field in the second semester, with an expected amount of 100,000 VND per student. This parent said that socialization is based on the spirit of voluntariness, but parents were not consulted in advance about such fees.

During parent meetings, announcements were made to "fix" how much each student would pay, without any discussion or debate.

Explaining to the press about the above reactions of parents, Ms. Hoang Thi Thu Ha, the school's principal, affirmed that "no fees have been collected yet". However, Ms. Ha also said: "The school has the idea of ​​socialization, but is still in the process of collecting opinions, supporting as much as possible, but not leveling, not mobilizing parents alone to build a soccer field for their children".

EXCUSES FOR INFLATION

Public opinion is often stirred up and discussed a lot about a strange income of a school or a teacher, but little attention is paid, even indifferent to information such as "budgetary expenditure for education is not guaranteed", even though this information directly affects the quality of education and the income and expenditure of each school is often repeated by the Ministry of Education and Training every school year.

At the conference summarizing 10 years of implementing Resolution 29 on fundamental and comprehensive innovation of education and training at the end of 2024, the Ministry of Education and Training informed: In the past 10 years, the budget for education and training has been at 15 - 19%, and no year has reached the minimum level of 20% as set out. The report on the 2022 education budget estimates of 63 provinces and cities shows that only 50% of localities have achieved the minimum rate of spending on teaching and learning. The Ministry of Education and Training believes that the above investment level does not meet the requirements for innovation and development of education and training. The budget allocation is still inadequate. Local budgets allocated for educational activities are mainly spent on salaries, and some localities do not even ensure the regular expenditure structure for education.

The excuse that the education budget is not guaranteed is why parents are "charged" for expenses that should be paid by the government, such as: school repairs, whitewashing, paving, cleaning classrooms, or smaller expenses like buying test papers, changing light bulbs...

A former leader of the Planning and Finance Department of the Ministry of Education and Training said that when the state budget is still limited, mobilizing social resources voluntarily to invest in improving conditions to ensure the quality of education is legitimate and necessary. However, according to this person, it seems that we are facing a rather serious problem of not properly understanding and implementing the law on socialization in education, leading to inappropriate implementation methods when calling for socialization and funding for educational institutions. This is the reason why some places, some localities, especially the heads of educational institutions, have not implemented the regulations properly, allowing the situation of taking advantage of the parents' association, imposing and leveling to collect money from parents.

National Assembly delegate Nguyen Thi Viet Nga (Hai Duong delegation) acknowledged that overcharging often appears under the name of calling for the socialization of education, with additional fees and fees outside of regulations originating from "parents' needs". It is from the socialization of education that the problem of overcharging arises, meaning that the fees from calling for socialization are too much and too unreasonable, there are activities that are funded by the budget but schools still collect fees from parents.

"In my opinion, the socialization of education is still necessary, stemming from the actual needs of parents and schools. However, overcharging is a different story and is highly condemnable," said Ms. Nga, adding that the attention and supervision of parents, along with the supervision of authorities, requires educational institutions to strictly implement State regulations.

However, Ms. Nga also pointed out that, in another aspect, although there has been a requirement for public disclosure according to regulations, in reality, there may still be schools that partially disclose, meaning that there are some other fees that are not included in the public document, but are subject to agreement between the school and the parents' representative board. To prevent overcharging, the important issue is to strictly handle cases of intentional wrongdoing. In addition, it is necessary to strengthen propaganda and dissemination to parents and supervision by authorities.

The fact that the budget for education is not guaranteed is the excuse that many schools use to justify overcharging under the name of socializing education. The recent Conclusion No. 91 of the Politburo on continuing to fundamentally and comprehensively innovate education and training also clearly states the requirement to ensure that the state budget for education and training accounts for at least 20% of the total state budget expenditure as set out in Resolution No. 29. At the same time, promptly adjust the budget for education and training to match the growth of the economy...