Proposal to delay tuition increase by 1 year: Reducing pressure on schools and students

The Ministry of Education and Training proposed to adjust the tuition fee schedule, postponing it by one year compared to the tuition fee schedule in Decree 81.

We must consider solutions to prevent tuition fees from becoming a barrier for students to enter university. The State must have appropriate policies for public schools that train in specific fields, fields that have a great impact on socio-economic development and social security such as agriculture, forestry, fishery, medicine and pharmacy.

Dr. Tran Dinh Ly (Vice Principal of University of Agriculture and Forestry)

The most suitable tuition plan

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, for public educational institutions, a one-year delay compared to the roadmap prescribed in Decree 81 means that tuition fees for the 2023-2024 school year will be increased according to the tuition fees for the 2022-2023 school year according to Decree 81.

This contributes to supporting public educational institutions to have revenue to offset costs, innovate and improve training quality; encourage public schools to accelerate the roadmap for autonomy in regular expenditure, increasing conditions for international integration.

Regarding this, Mr. Bui Quang Hung, Vice Principal of Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics - said: "This is the most suitable option in the current context. This option both slows down the increase in tuition fees and shares some of the difficulties of society, while significantly reducing the impact on schools when they once again have to adjust their short-term and medium-term operating plans for the period 2020 - 2025 (previous adjustments were made due to the COVID-19 pandemic, no tuition increase...)".

According to Mr. Hung, with tuition fees not increasing in the past three years, the school's immediate difficulties in the 2021-2025 period are not great, but the biggest impact is on medium and long-term strategy and operational plans.

Especially in the period 2025 - 2030 with many international goals set to be achieved. The school will have to review and select a number of priority goals with a recalculated financial resource roadmap.

Meanwhile, Mr. Nguyen Minh Tung - Head of Admissions and Student Affairs Department of Vietnam Aviation Academy - said that the school has announced the expected tuition fee for all training majors in the 2023 - 2024 school year is 24 million VND/school year (30 credits).

"According to Decree 81, public schools that are not yet autonomous, tuition fees for the 2023-2024 school year range from 13.5 - 27.6 million VND/school year (10 months); public schools that are self-sufficient in regular expenses are allowed to collect 27 - 55 million VND/year; schools that are self-sufficient in regular expenses and investment expenses collect 33 million VND to more than 69 million VND/year.

Meanwhile, the expected tuition fee at the academy of about 12 million VND/semester can be considered quite low compared to the general level, only about equal to the highest fee of the non-autonomous school. Now the Ministry of Education and Training proposes to delay the tuition fee schedule in Decree 81 by one year, which is reasonable," Mr. Tung commented.

More student support policies needed

Mr. Tran Dinh Ly - Vice Principal of Ho Chi Minh City University of Agriculture and Forestry said that he personally understands the difficulties of those involved (parents, teachers, school leaders) and also understands the difficulties in making decisions by the Government and the education and training sector on the issue of tuition fees.

"The Ministry of Education and Training has carefully considered the impact of the policy to propose a one-year delay compared to the tuition fee roadmap in Decree 81, so the tuition fee adjustment range for the 2023-2024 school year is lower than the regulations in this decree.

This contributes to reducing the pressure on tuition fees for students and encouraging public universities, which is very reasonable and humane. The tuition fee increase proposed by the ministry may still be low compared to non-public schools, and even lower compared to international schools," said Mr. Ly.

According to Mr. Ly, if we consider increasing other sources of income to help schools reduce their dependence on tuition fees, in the direction of reducing training and increasing scientific and technological activities, services... it will also indirectly help increase training quality through increased research.

But that does not reduce the cost of training and tuition. In fact, in the world, the more prestigious the university is in research, the higher the tuition fee.

Therefore, maintaining low tuition fees but requiring high quality training and using revenue from other services to make up for the difference is not appropriate.

While tuition fees must at least cover the basic needs of training, additional revenue from other sources must be used to support other university activities such as income for staff and other non-profit activities...

Mr. Pham Thai Son - Director of the Admissions and Communications Center of Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry and Trade also said that in the context of the school being autonomous but not increasing tuition fees in the past few years, they had to "pull and pull" together everything to make the work go smoothly.

The school has borrowed preferential credit for businesses to invest in development. However, if tuition fees continue to not increase, the school will have difficulty repaying the loan. Therefore, the school supports the tuition fee plan proposed in the draft to replace Decree 81 of the Ministry of Education and Training that has just been submitted to the Government.

Decree 81 stipulates the tuition fee ceiling for public higher education institutions that have not yet covered their regular expenses until the school year.

2025-2026. The Ministry of Education and Training proposed to postpone by one year, meaning that the 2023-2024 school year will apply the 2022-2023 level. Unit: thousand VND/student/month.