How do schools collect fees correctly?

Increase school initiative

On October 18, the People's Council of Hai Duong province issued Resolution No. 17/2024/NQ-HDND stipulating tuition fees and the list of revenues, collection levels, and revenue and expenditure management mechanisms for services supporting educational activities at public preschools and general education institutions in Hai Duong province, replacing Resolution No. 08/2022/NQ-HDND of the Provincial People's Council.

Some fees under Resolution 08 were not included in Resolution 17 such as: fees for teaching 2 sessions/day in primary school and introducing English to preschool children; extra teaching and learning in secondary and high schools, learning foreign languages, learning life skills; supplies, toys and learning materials (for preschools); student cards; activities of art and sports clubs; drinking water.

After Resolution 17 was issued, schools were still struggling to figure out how to collect some of these fees because some educational support activities and services had been implemented since the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year. Schools have collected some fees such as insurance, drinking water, student cards. Schools have not collected fees such as teaching 2 sessions/day in primary schools, introducing English to kindergarteners and first and second graders, extra teaching, extra learning...

The guidance on the collection, management and use of fees in public educational institutions in the province from the 2024-2025 school year of the Department of Education and Training - Hai Duong Finance has provided timely guidance, helping schools proactively implement the fees.

In addition to the items with specific collection rates in Resolution 17/2024/NQ-HDND, some items are guided to be collected according to other documents, mainly circulars of the Ministry of Education and Training. These circulars do not provide specific collection rates but stipulate that the collection rates must be based on actual conditions and agreements between parents and schools...

Teacher Doan Thi Bich Thuy, Principal of Tan Binh Kindergarten (Hai Duong City) said that based on current legal documents, such regulations have given schools the initiative to calculate and account for their own revenues and expenditures.

For example, drinking water is an expense that schools are struggling to pay. However, after studying the regulations in Joint Circular No. 13/2016/TTLT - BYT - BGDĐT dated May 12, 2016 of the Ministry of Health - Ministry of Education and Training on school health work, some schools have based on each student using at least 0.5 liters in the summer, 0.3 liters in the winter, the number of school sessions/month and the actual market price for a 20-liter water bottle (depending on the quality of the water company) to calculate the amount of drinking water for students.

Similarly, the revenue that schools are very interested in is the fee for 2 sessions/day, extra teaching, and extra learning in school. Some leaders of the district-level Department of Education and Training said that this revenue will have to be based on the average salary of teachers, the number of teaching periods prescribed for each level, the number of teachers, the number of students registered for extra learning, and the agreement between parents and the school to have a formula to calculate the amount of extra learning. For example, a junior high school in Hai Duong City is collecting extra learning fees from students at about 20,000 VND/session.

The representative of the Tu Ky District Department of Education and Training said that the inter-sectoral guidance has oriented the revenue and expenditure contents according to the regulations; oriented the development of revenue plans suitable to the conditions of each unit, the actual economic conditions in each locality; increased autonomy for schools. However, the same revenue will also have different collection levels between urban, rural and mountainous areas or may be different at different levels of education such as drinking water fees... Therefore, it is necessary for schools to have time to carefully study before developing a revenue and expenditure plan.

Clear people, clear work

The District Education and Training Departments have disseminated this inter-sectoral guidance to schools. At the same time, they are coordinating with the District Finance and Planning Department to advise the District People's Committee to come up with common calculation formulas for some revenue items, then seek opinions from the Department of Education and Training before issuing guidance for schools to implement. Schools will also refer to the collection levels of some items according to Resolution 08 to develop revenue and expenditure plans before submitting them to higher authorities for approval.

According to the representative of the Gia Loc District Department of Education and Training, from the perspective of state management, the district-level Departments of Education and Training will control all stages of each school's revenue and expenditure from planning to implementation. On this basis, promoting the spirit of clear people, clear work, clear responsibilities, especially the principals will have to explain specifically, in detail, clearly the revenue, thereby contributing to limiting the situation of "over-collection"...

However, the tasks of the Departments of Education and Training will increase, while there are few human resources and no accountants, so the implementation of specific instructions to schools will not be quick. At this time, the first semester of the 2024-2025 school year is almost over, while most of the collections must be approved by parents. The procedures and processes take more time than before. Therefore, it is not until the second semester that schools can organize parent meetings to implement uncollected amounts and deduct collected amounts according to Resolution 17 and other guiding documents.

The Department of Education and Training of Hai Duong has requested the People's Committee at the district level to direct the Department of Education and Training to coordinate with the financial agency to disseminate the content of this inter-sectoral guidance to affiliated educational institutions for implementation. At the same time, regularly inspect, supervise and monitor educational institutions to promptly detect and prevent the situation of "overcharging"...