Overcharging at the beginning of every school year causes outrage. How can we prevent it?

At the beginning of the new school year, stories of overcharging in schools have caused outrage in society. How to prevent overcharging in schools?

Parents meeting and fund raising at a school - Photo: TU TRUNG

Tuoi Tre recorded opinions from experts to suggest solutions to this problem.

Dr. Nguyen Kim Dung (former Deputy Director of the Institute of Educational Research - Ho Chi Minh City University of Education):

Solutions must come from many sides.

In principle, schools must have regulations on income and expenditure, what can be collected and what cannot be collected. What is compulsory and what is voluntary.

The list of fees must be clearly and publicly announced to parents.

In addition, voluntary contributions from parents also need to be transparent in revenue and expenditure through the school's accounting system. Avoid the situation where the homeroom teacher or nanny in the school has to become the person to collect money.

Many parents complain that they attend parent-teacher conferences only to hear the parent-teacher association call for money. Therefore, we must re-evaluate the role of parents in relation to the school.

The Parents' Association is not and cannot be the only place to collect money from parents as it is now. In addition to taking care of the material life of students, the Parents' Association needs to consider the parents' contribution in improving the quality of their children's education.

In the current context, when the voices of parents in the classes are weaker than those of the elected parent-teacher committee, to combat overcharging, the school needs to open a separate channel so that parents who do not agree or have different opinions about the fees or activities of the parent-teacher committee will have a channel to report to the school about those situations.

Only then can the school control the activities of the class parent representative committee to ensure consistency with the school's revenue and expenditure activities and with their own functions and duties.

However, these are only school management solutions to combat overcharging at the grassroots level. I still believe that the long-term solution to combat overcharging in schools as well as the distortion of fees must still consider the role of the State.

Currently, the State pays much attention to public investment in education, including school construction. I think that the State needs to have appropriate policies in construction and public investment in the field of education. How to ensure that schools have basic equipment and facilities for students to meet the basic living conditions in today's life.

In the context of the private system being better invested and greatly expanded in general education, the State has greatly helped in spreading out investment in schools, so the State needs to consider long-term measures to limit negative aspects in voluntary revenue and expenditure in public schools.

I think that school leaders must clearly understand and be responsible for all school revenues, including voluntary revenues. Then the situation of overcharging, distorting revenues, and turning voluntary revenues into mandatory ones will gradually decrease and then disappear.

Dr. Ngo Xuan Diep

Master of Law Nguyen Thi Thai Thuan (Lecturer at University of Finance and Marketing):

It is necessary to collect

For voluntary fees in schools, we must see that since they are voluntary fees, 100% of parents cannot and should not be required to contribute.

Therefore, in my opinion, to reduce the variations of overcharging, schools need to analyze and come up with really necessary fees before agreeing for the parent representative committees of each class to implement.

The majority of parents' concerns about the overcharging of parent-teacher associations are aimed at contributions that only serve interests other than improving the quality of education and serving the students' learning. Therefore, the fees collected by parent-teacher associations must be approved by teachers as well as the school's principal.

Besides, I think that the mission of schools is not only to teach students knowledge but also to train students in the qualities of a hard-working personality...

To avoid unnecessary fees and teach students to love work, contribute to the community, and become useful people, schools need to balance having young students do small jobs, avoiding unnecessary fees for parents.

Dr. Ngo Xuan Diep (Lecturer of Psychology, University of Social Sciences and Humanities - Ho Chi Minh City National University):

Revenues must be transparent.

To combat the distortion of school fees, we need a transparent system of fees.

In the current condition of uneven school facilities and different learning conditions for each student in each school, the school relies on the State's revenue and expenditure regulations to set reasonable revenues and is responsible for those revenues.

The school also thoroughly informed parents to avoid illegal collection and spending.

Voluntary contributions should be limited to a ceiling and based on the genuine willingness of each parent to contribute. In cases where parents contribute more, they should contribute in the form of sponsorship.

The school must be responsible for all collections and when cases of parents using the name of the parent-teacher association to collect money outside of the prescribed amounts are discovered, the school must "blow the whistle" for management.

Need a monitoring system

Along with activities to combat overcharging from schools, we need a monitoring system at higher management levels such as the Department of Education and Training. Departments of Education and Training of provinces and cities need to have hotlines for parents to report problems of overcharging at schools.

This hotline needs to record and quickly resolve the problem of overcharging at school to bring maximum trust to parents. With the right decisions in coordination between families, schools and management units, I believe that overcharging will decrease and will no longer be a concern for parents.

MSc. Nguyen Thi Thai Thuan

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Source: https://tuoitre.vn/bien-tuong-lam-thu-dau-nam-hoc-nao-cung-gay-buc-xuc-lam-sao-ngan-chan-2025092109251225.htm