Ly Tu Trong College speaks out after being found guilty of many violations

TPO - The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training (DoET) has just announced the inspection results of Ly Tu Trong College in Ho Chi Minh City, pointing out 16 violations in financial management, enrollment, student records and accounting. This is considered a serious incident related to revenue, expenditure and enrollment activities of a public vocational training institution in the area.

Báo Tiền Phong•26/10/2025

Numerous irregularities in revenue and expenditure and student admissions.

According to the inspection findings, from the 2020-2021 academic year to the 2024-2025 academic year, Ly Tu Trong College illegally collected tuition fees from 15,943 students, totaling over 158 billion VND. Although the school has refunded approximately 137.6 billion VND, more than 20.4 billion VND remains unpaid for 2,022 students.

The Department of Education and Training affirms that the "temporary collection of tuition fees" is only permitted for non-public educational institutions or those belonging to businesses or economic organizations, and not for public schools like Ly Tu Trong College. Furthermore, the school's practice of both temporarily collecting tuition fees and preparing budget estimates to withdraw funds for tuition fee reimbursement is not in accordance with regulations.

Students of Ly Tu Trong College during a practical training session.

In addition, the student recruitment and record-keeping process was found to have many shortcomings. Some students who had not yet graduated from vocational schools were still admitted to college; some classes started in early November 2022, but admission decisions were issued months later. Some classes had over 300 students, far exceeding current regulations.

In addition, violations such as assigning lecturers to teach overtime, managing bank accounts, providing opaque financial reports, and failing to transfer all tuition fees to the State Treasury were also clearly stated.
The Department of Education and Training believes that these actions not only constitute administrative violations in the field of vocational education , but also show signs of violating laws on public finance, public assets, and accounting, and need to be further considered and handled according to its authority.

Therefore, the Department of Education and Training has transferred the case file to the City Police for further investigation into alleged violations by the school, including the management and use of public finances (temporary tuition fee collection, tuition fee refunds, accounting records, etc.); and the management and use of public assets.

The school speaks out.

Regarding the aforementioned conclusions, in an interview with a reporter, Dr. Dinh Van De – Acting Principal of Ly Tu Trong College – stated that the school had submitted an explanatory report to the Department of Education and Training on October 2nd, expressing that some contents in the inspection report "do not accurately reflect the nature of the incident, and many actions were concluded to be too harsh," which could affect the school's reputation.

According to the explanation, the inspection team from the Department of Education and Training initially planned to work during the period 2020-2024, but in reality, they inspected back to 2017, causing the school to have to review and extract a large amount of records, and at times, the school was unable to provide all the necessary evidence.

Regarding the outstanding amount of over 20 billion VND, Mr. De stated that its nature needs to be clearly understood. Specifically, the tuition fee exemption/reduction (PM) for college-level programs amounts to 19.27 billion VND, primarily a 70% tuition fee reduction for hazardous and strenuous occupations in the 2024-2025 academic year. As of March 31, 2025, this academic year has not yet ended, so the money cannot be disbursed to students; the funds remain in the State Treasury. According to the plan, the school will deduct the tuition fees from the first semester of the 2025-2026 academic year and disburse the remaining amount to students in November-December 2025, based on Notice No. 728/TB-LTTC-KHTC dated September 3, 2025.

The amount of MGHP (Student Tuition Fee) for the T4 intermediate level (for students who completed lower secondary education and are now pursuing intermediate level education) is 1.18 billion VND, affecting 328 students from the 2021-2023 period. This amount has not been refunded because the students have either failed to provide or provided incorrect bank account numbers, despite repeated reminders from the school.

From March to September 2025, the school disbursed an additional VND 554.7 million to 176 students and is currently completing the payment process for the remaining students. These amounts are detailed in the appendix accompanying Explanatory Report No. 815/BC-LTT-TC.

The school's leadership added: "We have provided all the necessary documents and are ready to cooperate with the Department of Education and Training to verify and clarify each point. Once the official results are available, the Board of Directors will announce them publicly to avoid misunderstandings and misinformation."