Overcharging or socialization

Almost every school year, many parents express disagreement and even anger at a series of supposedly voluntary school fees.

For example, recently, a parent posted on social media expressing his frustration about having to contribute money to the school to buy 7 televisions for 50 million VND for the 10th grade class; or another school mobilized and collected more than 70 million VND to build a parking lot for students.

Previously, a teacher in Ho Chi Minh City also caused a public "storm" when he asked parents for money to buy him a laptop, but when they disagreed, he "sulked" and refused to prepare review outlines for students. Explaining to the press, this teacher said that the incident was normal, in line with the policy of socializing education...

Not only that, many parents reported that, in addition to the fees collected by the school according to regulations such as tuition, health insurance, school construction fees, contributions to school activities... there are many other fees that the parents' representative committee "mobilized" to buy TVs, interactive screens, air conditioners, curtains, cabinets, pay for air conditioning electricity...

It can be said that public investment in the education sector is currently very limited, leading to the facilities of many public schools not being able to meet the highest requirements of parents and students in their studies.

According to the report of the Ministry of Education and Training at the Conference summarizing 10 years of implementing Resolution No. 29-NQ/TW dated November 4, 2013 of the 11th Party Central Committee "On fundamental and comprehensive innovation of education and training, meeting the requirements of industrialization and modernization in the conditions of a socialist-oriented market economy and international integration", in the past 10 years, the budget for education and training was at 15 - 19%, not reaching the minimum level of 20% as set out. However, in that budget expenditure, the majority was spent on salaries and benefits for teachers.

Therefore, the Party and the State have a policy of calling for socialization to mobilize social resources voluntarily to share difficulties with the education sector, contributing to building an increasingly better education sector in both quality and quantity. This is a correct and necessary policy while the state budget is still facing many difficulties.

By definition, socialization of education is the mobilization of the whole society to do education, motivating all classes of people to contribute to building national education under the management of the State to build a learning society; is the realization of a common connection between educational activities and the social community, making education suitable for the development of society, adapting to society, maintaining the balance between educational and social activities.

However, currently, the movement to socialize education is somewhat misunderstood, leading to a situation where some places, especially heads of educational institutions, have not implemented the regulations properly, allowing the situation of imposing and equalizing the collection of money from parents, causing the socialization policy to become an over-collection.

Overcharging due to these additional and unregulated fees is too much; there are even fees that are considered "unreasonable" when these payments have been invested by the state budget but the school still collects them.

It can also be said that the overcharging of some schools comes from the parents' representative committee with the "pretext" of collecting according to "parents' needs". However, Circular 55/2011/TT-BGDDT of the Ministry of Education and Training promulgating the regulations of the parents' representative committee clearly stipulates: The parents' representative committee is not allowed to collect donations from students or their families.

Donations to the parent-teacher association are voluntary and do not directly serve the following activities: Protecting school facilities, ensuring school security; supervising students' vehicles; cleaning classrooms and schools; rewarding school administrators, teachers and staff; purchasing machinery, equipment and teaching aids for schools, classrooms or for school administrators, teachers and staff; supporting management, teaching and learning organization and educational activities; repairing, upgrading and constructing new school facilities.

Socialization of education is necessary, stemming from the actual needs of parents and schools to ensure that children have a comfortable and adequate learning environment. However, do not let a good policy "deform" and become a burden for parents, especially for families with many difficulties.

To prevent overcharging, it is necessary to strictly handle cases of intentional wrongdoing; at the same time, strengthen propaganda and dissemination to parents and supervision by authorities.

Recently, Conclusion No. 91-KL/TW dated August 12, 2024 of the Politburo on continuing to implement Resolution No. 29-NQ/TW dated November 4, 2013 of the 11th Party Central Committee "On fundamental and comprehensive innovation of education and training, meeting the requirements of industrialization and modernization in the context of a socialist-oriented market economy and international integration" also clearly stated: Continue to innovate the management mechanism, ensure adequate conditions for facilities and financial resources for education and training development; ensure that the state budget for education and training is at least 20% of the total state budget expenditure as set out in Resolution No. 29-NQ/TW; at the same time, promptly adjust the increase in state budget expenditure for education and training in line with economic growth.

Hopefully, from these decisions, the financial burden on the education sector will be lightened and socialization will return to its true meaning.