Many fees are labeled "voluntary" at the beginning of the school year, and parents are suddenly... startled when they hear them.

Controversial early year revenue series

Beginning-of-year fees are always a controversial topic every new school year. Besides the legitimate fees to support learning, there are also many "unusual" fees that make parents startled.

Talking to Dan Viet newspaper reporter, a parent at a primary school in Hanoi shared: "Recently, the class parent committee announced that the school has a plan to build a roof to cover the school yard. The estimated cost for each class is 30 million VND, which is not a small amount, equivalent to each student paying nearly 600,000-700,000 VND.

Although the announcements were all voluntary, the secret campaign was to call each person to say that they had to collect enough money to start the project, to find a contractor... Parents paid in an uncomfortable mood because they kept saying "contribute, pay, but don't understand anything". I don't mind paying, and other parents also see the need for a cool roof for their children, but they don't agree because there is no clear plan yet.

Regarding the above content, the school principal said: "This is a decision made by parents, not the school's plan."

Parents are upset about some fees, for example the total cost of hiring workers is 320,000 VND/day. Photo: CMH

A parent of Hong Du Secondary School in Hai Duong reported that on September 22, 2024, the school held a parent meeting and announced some expected revenue and expenditure items for the 2024-2025 school year. Particularly, the item money to hire workers, socialization, parents do not agree.

According to the expected revenue and expenditure table, 490 students (100% of participating classes) each student pays 20,000 VND/month for cleaning the school, cutting grass in the stadium, pruning and taking care of the school garden... Total expected revenue is 9,800,000 VND.

Of which, the estimated cost of hiring cleaning workers and sweeping the school is 320,000 VND.

Parents believe that secondary school students can be made to work to develop self-discipline, self-discipline and responsibility to the community, without necessarily having to hire workers at a daily rate of 320,000 VND. In addition, parents also have opinions about the school mobilizing socialized funds to buy televisions at 300,000 VND/student.

Regarding the above collection, the Principal of Hong Du Secondary School, Hai Duong explained: "In fact, the school has informed all parents about some expected collections for the 2024-2025 school year. Including the cleaning labor fee, calculated monthly. According to Resolution 08/2022/NQ-HDND of the People's Council of Hai Duong province, the collection fee for cleaning classrooms and toilets in educational institutions is capped at 20,000 VND/month. From that regulation, the school has detailed, that is, made public the budget estimate.

Currently, the school has 503 students, students with difficult circumstances will be exempted from this fee, so the total number of students paying is 490. Before that, the school had consulted with all parents of 12 classes. There were two options, the first was to hire a cleaner, if any class did not agree to hire, the students would work by themselves, there was no coercion here. The school also met with parents who reported the information on social networks and explained to them. Because at first, parents misunderstood that the fee was 20,000 VND/day, but in fact, that amount was calculated monthly.

The reason this content has caused a stir on social networks is partly due to the unclear dissemination of information, leading to parents not fully understanding the issue. The school will learn from experience and re-disseminate it so that parents can understand it."

Early-year fees make parents angry. Photo: CMH

Recently, a parent in Ho Chi Minh City was upset with the fees presented by the parent representative committee at the first meeting of the year in class.

According to the image shared by this parent, the draft budget for the class representative committee's activities includes 3 items: Class representative committee activities, gratitude and party expenses. The class has 27 students, each parent will pay nearly 1.9 million VND.

Specifically, the draft budget for class activities has a total amount of up to more than 28.6 million VND, including items such as classroom equipment (2 million VND), photocopying of learning materials (2 million VND), and costs to support school activities (8.1 million VND)...

With the draft gratitude activity, this class plans to thank the homeroom teacher and principal on November 20th with 1 million VND each; the student management and service teachers with 300,000 VND each; 11 subject teachers with 500,000 VND each... Total 9.4 million VND.

Too much funding should be condemned.

Talking to Dan Viet newspaper reporters about the early year collections, Ms. Nguyen Thi Viet Nga, National Assembly Delegation of Hai Duong province, expressed: "I see that every year, parents report, the press writes a lot, and the next school year, the same thing is reported again. In addition to the school fund, class fund, and parent association fund, there are many other funds that make parents upset.

This problem keeps repeating itself, but despite the efforts of many levels, many sectors, and even the education sector itself, we have not been able to thoroughly handle this problem.

There are unreasonable fees, for example, if facilities are equipped once, they can be used for many years, or curtain systems, air conditioners, and projectors, if students from one class contribute, can be used for the following year's classes.

However, when students move to a new class, they have to pay from the beginning. There are also cases where the fee is based on an agreement between parents and homeroom teachers. If too much money is paid into the fund, we need to condemn it.

However, from a certain perspective, I sympathize with the schools, because the collection of large funds almost only happens in public schools, and very little in non-public schools. For public schools, the amount of money from the state budget is not much, from 90 million to more than 100 million VND/ year, it is clear that the schools are also very difficult so they have to mobilize funds from parents.

Dr. Vu Viet Anh, a psychology expert, said that currently, the most controversial school revenues are concentrated in four areas: school fund, class fund; purchasing equipment and teaching aids; organizing extracurricular activities; security, sanitation, drinking water, and repairing facilities.

To legalize these fees, schools all use the form of agreement with parents. "Although it is an agreement, it still needs to be managed and monitored. Education management agencies need to issue specific regulations so that parents know which fees are mandatory and which are not. Many times parents do not understand clearly and turn a blind eye to the fees previously suggested by the school," said Mr. Viet Anh.

On the school side, according to Dr. Vu Viet Anh, it is necessary to promote transparency among leaders. Principals must clarify the necessity of socialized revenues and these revenues must be for the purpose of educating students. In particular, revenues must not overlap with revenues according to state regulations.

8 fees that parents' representatives are not allowed to collect

According to regulations, schools are allowed to collect fees including tuition, health insurance, and personal insurance according to the Law on Health Insurance.

At the same time, educational institutions are allowed to collect additional fees agreed upon with parents or collected according to the Resolution of the People's Council of each province or city such as: Boarding meals, boarding care, boarding equipment, extra teaching and learning fees in schools, school supplies for preschool children, sanitation fees, drinking water fees, student cards, etc.

The Parents' Association is an organization of parents elected by the school and the family to act as a bridge between the school and the family. The Parents' Association is only allowed to collect two amounts of money, including the cost of organizing the activities of the association from voluntary support and other legal funding sources.

The operating budget of the school representative committee is taken from the operating budget of the class representative committees according to the recommendation of the general meeting of class representative committee heads at the beginning of the school year.

According to Circular 55 of 2011 of the Ministry of Education and Training, the parent representative committee is not allowed to collect donations from students and their families that are not voluntary and do not directly serve the activities of the committee. Specifically, the 8 types of money that are not allowed to be collected include:

Protecting school facilities; Protecting 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 educational activities; Repairing, upgrading and constructing new school facilities.

The collection and expenditure of funds by the representative board must ensure the principles of publicity and democracy; there is no regulation on the average level of support funds for parents of students.

It can be seen that although the documents clearly state the fees that can and cannot be collected in schools, in recent years, overcharging has still been taking place in schools.

Source: https://danviet.vn/nhieu-khoan-gan-mac-tu-nguyen-dau-nam-hoc-phu-huynh-nghe-xong-bong-giat-minh-20241002071334636.htm