The Ministry of Education proposes to reduce the floor price, will high school tuition fees decrease?

The Ministry of Education and Training is submitting to the Government a draft Decree amending Decree 81 on tuition fees. Accordingly, the ceiling tuition fee for general education will remain the same, but the floor fee will be sharply reduced, the lowest tuition fee in urban areas will be reduced by 1/3, and in mountainous areas, it will be reduced by 70% compared to the floor fee in the old regulations.

Loosen tuition range

According to the proposal, the Ministry of Education and Training proposed to adjust the tuition fee increase roadmap to be one year slower than the roadmap stipulated in Decree 81. Specifically, the tuition fee ceiling for the 2023-2024 school year will be equal to the tuition fee ceiling for the 2022-2023 school year. In addition, the Ministry of Education and Training also proposed to reduce the floor level (the lowest tuition fee). Thus, the tuition fee range is widened.

Specifically, according to Decree 81, for public preschool and general education institutions that are not self-sufficient in regular expenses, the floor and ceiling tuition fees for the 2022-2023 school year are as follows:

According to the draft revised Decree proposed by the Ministry of Education and Training, tuition fees for the 2023-2024 school year are as follows:

Thus, although the ceiling price remains the same, the floor price for general education tuition has decreased sharply. Specifically, in urban areas, the floor price has decreased by 2/3, from 300,000 VND to 100,000 VND for all levels of education.

In rural areas, the floor fee is reduced by 50%, from VND100,000 to VND50,000 for education levels from preschool to junior high school; reduced by 65% ​​for high school level, from VND200,000 to VND70,000.

In ethnic minority and mountainous areas, the minimum tuition fee for preschool, primary and secondary schools will be reduced by 40%, from VND50,000 to VND30,000; for high schools, it will be reduced by 70%, from VND100,000 to VND30,000.

Decree 81 was issued by the Government and took effect from 2021. However, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2021 and 2022, the Government requested public educational and training institutions not to increase tuition fees to share difficulties with the people. During this period, some localities even decided to exempt tuition fees for students such as Da Nang, Hai Phong, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, etc.

Will high school tuition fees decrease?

In the 2023-2024 school year, due to the lack of any Government directives on tuition fees, People's Committees of localities across the country have approved new tuition fees, implemented in accordance with Decree 81. The announcements of localities show that most apply the floor level, the lowest level in Decree 81 is 300,000 VND/student/month for urban areas, 100,000 VND/student/month for rural areas and 50,000 VND for mountainous areas.

However, despite the floor price, tuition fees for the new school year still increased sharply compared to the previous school year. In Hanoi, tuition fees for middle school students nearly doubled, from VND155,000/month to VND300,000/month. In mountainous areas, tuition fees for middle school students increased 2.5 times, from VND19,000/month to VND50,000/month, and tuition fees for high school students increased more than 4 times, from VND24,000/month to VND100,000/month.

Some provinces have tuition fees higher than the floor level of Decree 81, but the excess is not too large. In Bac Giang, the tuition fee for the 2023-2024 school year for urban areas is 320,000 VND/month, the lowest in rural areas is 105,000 VND/month, and the lowest in mountainous areas is 55,000 VND/month. With the new level, students in urban areas of Bac Giang will pay nearly double the tuition fee for preschool and triple the tuition fee for middle school and high school (tuition fee for the 2022-2023 school year, preschool is 180,000 VND/month, middle school and high school are 85,000 VND/month and 90,000 VND/month, respectively).

Similarly, in Ninh Thuan, tuition fees are also higher than the floor level of Resolution 81. In particular, the highest tuition fee at the preschool level, with key schools and national standard schools, is 330,000 VND/month.

According to education experts, if the Government approves the draft Decree amending and supplementing the tuition floor by 40 to 70% compared to the tuition floor stipulated in Resolution 81 as proposed by the Ministry of Education and Training, localities will have the basis to reduce tuition fees for the 2023-2024 school year.

This issue was also mentioned by the Ministry of Education and Training in Document 5459/BGDĐT-KHTC dated October 4, sent by the Ministry to ministries, ministerial-level agencies, government agencies; People's Committees of provinces and centrally run cities and educational institutions on the implementation of collections in the field of Education and Training for the 2023-2024 school year.

The document stated that regarding tuition fees for the 2023-2024 school year, the Ministry of Education and Training has coordinated with relevant agencies to draft a Government Decree amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No. 81. The content of the draft Decree is in the direction of stabilizing tuition fees for public preschool, general education, and vocational education institutions from the 2023-2024 school year compared to the 2021-2022 school year. Also according to the Ministry of Education and Training, the draft Decree is currently being considered and decided by the Government.

Also because the draft of the revised Decree 81 is being considered and decided by the Government, in addition to many provinces and cities that have implemented tuition collection according to Decree 81, some localities have directed schools to temporarily not collect tuition fees such as Bac Giang, Can Tho... Some localities have decided to continue to exempt tuition fees for the entire school year such as Hai Phong, Da Nang, or not collect tuition fees for the first semester such as Quang Binh. Meanwhile, some localities have announced that they will support students with part of the tuition fees such as Ha Nam, Ba Ria-Vung Tau.